NH-10

Source: filmibeat

It's a crude comparison to make but in the finale of the epic 'Invasion' story-line of WWE (then WWF), Shane Mcmahon himself fought in an elimination match to save the alliance that he owned then. The move was described as "putting his body where his money was" by Jim Ross I guess. Anushka has done the same as a producer in NH-10.

Anushka Sharma is the Nicole Kidman of Bollywood. She is a professional actress; and that is not a generic word in Bollywood because too few actresses are actually professional enough. Anushka knows how to be the talk of the town and that too for respectable reasons. She knows how to make powerful statements at the right time and how to shed away any weights that might hinder her ascent to the top. And it is safe to say that if she does not fall into any dreams of marrying a businessman and living a life far from B-Wood with charity institutions, she could very well become the Greatest Indian Actress of all time.

But I don't write all this simply because of NH-10. It is a good movie though; dark, speedy and most importantly real (mostly). The credit for all that goes to the director Navdeep Singh to have pulled all this in a convincing and believable fashion. If you forget for sometime that you know Anushka, it may look like a real story unfolding in-front of you. That is until the climax where the Heroine emerges from ashes and lets the audiences know of Woman power. It is a story of a couple Meera (Anushka) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam who is 'discount Rajkumar Rao' ), who are caught witnessing an honour-killing crime with Satbir (Darshan Kumaar) as the main villain. It is this old old story in an old bottle and yet it feels like a fresh one.

With the country charged with emotions of Woman power, the film tries to exploit the problems the 'woman of the metro' faces today. Things like that do turn boring sometimes but what's good about this film is that it never makes an issue out of it. There are no moral preachings by Anushka's character, no long monologues trying to depict her predicament even though it would have been good to see Anushka acting those things out. But she tries to do all that with emotions and not words and does a good job at that. Rest of the times, Meera means business.

You will not find any good music in the movie nor any picturesque sequences from a cinematographic point of view. The characters have no make-overs too; they act what they want to look. Look at Deepti Naval who plays a Sarpanch in a village. She doesn't look like one until she speaks and after that she looks nothing else. Except for this, there is no real acting in the movie. By this, I don't mean other actors haven't acted well but that it doesn't feel like acting and it appears they really are those characters. That however, is not a compliment.

All in all, NH-10 is nothing new except for a believable and real protagonist in Anushka.

Bandwidth Verdict: If you are an Anushka fan, watch this. If you are not, watch this to become one.