Prahaar Movie Review: There’s a tendency to mistake the importance of a real-life story for the quality of its cinematic retelling. With Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story, the weight of the subject and the significance of the man at its centre may invite a certain reverence, making any criticism of the filmmaking seem misplaced and almost blasphemous.
This is a man who has prosecuted cases such as the 2003 Gateway of India blast, the 2010 German Bakery blast in Pune, the 1993 Bombay blasts, Gulshan Kumar’s murder, Shakti Mills gang rape and, of course, the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. But the importance of his story doesn’t automatically translate into compelling cinema. The film has intent but heavily suffers due to a bumpy screenplay.
Prahaar
is all over the place, struggling to decide what it wants to focus on. Is it the terror attacks and the subsequent trials, Nikam’s family life, his complicated equation with his son or Ajmal Kasab’s background and life in Arthur Road Jail? By attempting to juggle all these threads, the film loses sight of its central narrative.
What emerges is a muddled mishmash of storylines that leaves you wondering what you’re supposed to invest in. That’s not to say the film is devoid of moments that move you to tears, fill you with rage or make you appreciate the sheer brilliance of its actors. But are a handful of powerful moments enough to make a good film? Seems unlikely.
Prahaar opens on the day of the 1993 Bombay blasts verdict. Having won the TADA case, Nikam remains remarkably equanimous even as those around him celebrate. “Kaam adhura reh gaya hai,” he says, refusing to rejoice before the entire terrorist network is exposed. Years later, as he attends his daughter’s wedding, a phone call shatters the celebrations. Mumbai is under attack.
The date is November 26, 2008. A series of coordinated shootings and bombings across the city leaves it reeling. Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive, becomes the face of the trial that follows, with Nikam entrusted with the responsibility of prosecuting him. Standing on the other side is Kazmi, who agrees to represent Kasab after the Mumbai Bar Association refuses to take up his defence.
What follows is a courtroom battle. Nikam insists on filing a single chargesheet, as it could lead him to Lashkar-e-Taiba and the entire network behind 26/11 and dismantle Kasab’s claim of being a juvenile. A press photographer, a senior nurse working at Cama Hospital and multiple cops appear as witnesses. But the most chilling and emotional testimony is from a ten-year-old survivor.
Prahaar also explores the personal cost of Nikam and Kazmi taking up opposing sides of the trial. While Nikam is dismissed by sections of the public as an ‘attention seeker’, Kazmi is branded a traitor for defending Kasab. In one particularly uncomfortable scene, Kazmi is insulted by another Muslim at a restaurant during Eid, in front of his own family and accused of bringing shame to their community.
Director Avinash Arun and writer Sumit Roy further capture the public outrage surrounding the trial, with people demanding Kasab’s immediate execution and growing impatient with what they perceive as the law’s slow pace in delivering justice. These are telling moments that capture the price of standing by one’s professional duty when public sentiment demands otherwise.
Importantly, Prahaar ensures that the narrative doesn’t devolve into mere bashing and targeting a religion or a country. In one of its most powerful and significant scenes, Nikam strikes up an unexpected conversation with Zulfiqar, a member of an official delegation from Islamabad. It’s food they bond over – bombil fry in Mumbai and haleem and galouti kebab in Islamabad.
Their exchange on politics, religion and the hatred fuelled by extremism makes a poignant, nuanced and humanist point – the fire you set in your neighbour’s home can eventually engulf your own. What follows is an unlikely friendship that transcends the animosity between the two countries. “Terrorists are not born but manufactured,” they say. The film largely holds on to its objectivity.
Despite these highlights, Prahaar struggles to stay afloat over its 2-hour and 21-minute runtime. The narrative is uneven and rarely gripping, often losing momentum at crucial junctures. The decision to explore Nikam’s personal and family life isn’t inherently problematic. The issue is how these portions are inserted between important scenes, disrupting the narrative flow.
Needless to say, they draw attention away from the central conflict. A mere acknowledgement of how his demanding career keeps him from spending time with his equally supportive family would have sufficed. Instead, the makers delve deep into his domestic life and a messy father-son equation marked by ego, leaving the screenplay unnecessarily bloated.
For instance, following a heart-wrenching sequence in which the ten-year-old girl testifies that Kasab shot her pregnant mother at CST, the film abruptly cuts to a sequence featuring Nikam and his wife in a hospital room and then to a flashback chronicling their love story. The tonal shift is jarring, diluting the emotional impact of an otherwise devastating moment.
The weak links are too many to ignore. As for the performances, Rajkummar Rao delivers a decent turn as Nikam. But it also raises a question – does an actor need to replicate every body-language cue and mannerism of the person he’s portraying? While he captures Nikam’s mannerisms well, the performance eventually feels too mechanical, making it difficult to connect with the man behind the persona.
The act also suffers from the way Nikam is written on paper, as a man with barely any visible vulnerabilities. The character feels too one-dimensional, leaving little room for the actor to bring out the complexities that might have made him more compelling. This is certainly not one of Rao’s more memorable performances.
Wamiqa Gabbi, as Nikam’s wife Jyoti, has little to do beyond trying to replicate the real person’s mannerisms. It’s a peripheral role that adds little to the narrative and does little to showcase her abilities as an actor. She almost feels like a narrative device to offer some relief from an otherwise tense film, rather than a character with any real depth or purpose of her own.
It is Jaideep Ahlawat who truly leaves an impact as Zulfiqar, despite limited screen time. As India and Pakistan are caught in a cycle of hostility, he emerges as a voice of reason, advocating dialogue over hatred and reminding us of the human cost of extremism. His moments with Rao are pure gold. Sikandar Kher as Kazmi is equally impressive.
But the absolute show stealer is Lalit Prabhakar, who delivers a remarkable act as Kasab. From the chilling smirk on his face as he kills people to the distress he experiences on learning that his mother has fallen ill, he captures the many shades of a man who is both a perpetrator of horrific violence and a product of indoctrination.
His fear upon seeing the bodies of his fellow terrorists and realising that he has been brainwashed into killing in the name of attaining jannat is particularly striking. It’s a layered, unsettling performance. In a scene inside the cell, he begins hallucinating, offering a glimpse into his deteriorating mental state. Prabhakar sheds all inhibitions in the sequence, delivering a raw, uninhibited performance.
In all honesty, Prahaar is a film that deserved to be told. It has its heart in the right place. It’s great material on paper. It wants to unsettle us. But the problem is that much of it gets lost under the weight of its own aspirations. Ultimately, it’s a film of powerful moments that never quite comes together as a compelling whole.
