Apurva

Apurva (2023) : Movie Review:

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's crime thriller, Apurva, stars Tara Sutaria, Abhishek Banerjee, Rajpal Yadav, Dhairya Karwa, Sumit Gulati, and Aaditya Gupta. We have seen the Anushka Sharma starrer "NH 10," which had a similar story to Apurva, but the latter is based on a true event and is more about the leading lady than a couple (like the former). This genre of escape thriller/drama needs extreme detailing in the screenplay and storyline, which Apurva lacks. On a positive note, all the actors have done a brilliant job, and their efforts are enough to make this one a pretty average, decent watch.

In Chambal, a group of four hoodlums: Jugnu (Rajpal Yadav), Sukha (Abhishek Banerjee), Balli (Sumit Gulati), and Chota (Aditya Gupta) loot people and kill them. While overtaking a luxury bus, Jugnu is abused by a driver, and then he stops the bus, shoots the driver, and kills the conductor/cleaner. Sukha and Balli enter the bus and start looting jewellery and clothes from passengers, and one of them is Apurva (Tara Sutaria). Apurva is receiving a call from her boyfriend, Sid (Dhairya Karwa), who speaks badly to Sukha over the call. To seek revenge and be all lusty over Apurva's beauty, Sukha and his gang members kidnap her and take her to a deserted place. The four of them plan to rape Apurva and then kill her the next day. Will Apurva's brave efforts be enough to find an escape from these four violent and ruthless people?

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's Apurva is fine story to pick up for a thrilling and intense ride, but like I said, this genre needs a sharp screenplay. Apurva is far from that. It's not sharp, and that's okay, but it's too thin and blurry. The screenplay is scattered, and that's why the entire build-up collapses on the ground. A girl cannot run away despite having so many opportunities; she can see through a brick wall, but not run away; she can find a hideout at the same place instead; she even knows where the car is parked; she can use a weapon whenever she wants and it can disappear as per situations; the fellas with guns will not shoot the girl; one slap is enough to make a girl highly unconscious, but several falls can still leave enough power for her to run; a man can be alive even after falling into a deep well, but one rock hit is enough to make him quite and how Apurva did it, don't ask; the man with injured legs can catch up with the car and then suddenly lie down and beg for his life on the railroad. There are so many illogical movements, and nothing actually grips you. That's where Apurva falls, and it falls flat. It doesn't matter how many positive points the film has; the screenplay is so messy that it doesn't give the film any chance to recover.

Since her debut, Tara Sutaria has always been a hero's heroine, who would do romance, grand makeup, glamorous outfits, and sweet talk. With Apurva, she finally enters the "actor's" zone, and HOW! In the first scene and flashback romance, she is the same Tara you have seen in previous films. But she had to look beautiful so that the physical transformation would make more sense. It works. This is her best performance so far, and I think she should continue doing such meaty roles where people would be more attracted to her acting than just her beautiful face. Abhishek Banerjee is solid again, and this was a tailor-made role for him. He fits so well into everything. Rajpal Yadav is another great performer here, despite having fewer dialogues. This man has been so underrated for years, and all people remember of him is comedy. Please be sensible; he is way bigger and better than that. Sumit Gulati's accent is fantastic, Aditya Gupta looked fine, and Dhairya Karwa is decent in his supporting role.

Another good thing about Apurva is its cinematography. Anshuman Mahaley gets all the credit for that. Still, I think a few scenes could have been shot in a better way. For instance, in that well scene, when Tara is running, she slips suddenly and realises that there is a well at her feet. The camera takes it from her feet; instead, it should have started from the deep well, in the dark, and then come to the surface. The surprise element would have worked better this way, in my opinion. The music and background score are forgettable. The editing is tight as the film doesn't have a long runtime and doesn't have any loo breaks apart from that at one romantic song. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's direction is very notable in some scenes. Apurva and Chota crawl on the floor, all in mud, and then she hits him hard-such a raw presentation of the situation. Apurva's marking system and hideouts also seemed very smart; only that they were predictable but very well presented on the screen. It's the screenplay that fails to live up to the standards of direction, acting, and storyline. It's good that the film is coming on OTT since the subject hardly had any appeal for big-screen audiences. As a whole, Apurva is a promising film and could have been a much better film, but the screenplay doesn't fit right here. Yet, you can watch it for the good performances by Tara Sutaria, Rajpal Yadav, and Abhishek Banerjee.

RATING - 5/10*

The whole premise of the kidnapping was weak. Secondly, 3 comedians don't make great villainous characters. Rajpal Yadav with his diminutive stature and personality wasn't convincing as a bad guy. As for the rest of the gang, at any point they didn't seem threatening enough to overpower the victim. Dialogues were pedestrian at best. If you have seen NH10 you wouldn't be overly impressed with this version. Tara was no Anushka, you required a bit more mature personality to pull off this role. Some scenes were obviously manufactured just for thrills. There is a whole wilderness for the bad guys to search for their escaped victim, but inspite of not having any clue, they always seemed to be in the vicinity of the victim. They surely must have some kind of extra sensory perception. The frantic fiance always seemed to be a day late in his rescue attempt so was basically useless to the plot. The good thing about the movie is that the director knew the limitation of the script and the actors and didn't prolong it unnecessarily.

This was indeed a surprise package. I was expecting a shoddily done half baked crime thriller movie which sort of has been the 'speciality' of Disney HotStar in recent times. But luckily this wasn't the case with Apurva. First of all, the cinematography of the movie is top notch. It has been shot on real locations and the scenes are brilliantly shot. Even the BGM is good, it's not overdone.

But the main reason why this was such a good watch was because of the three menacing characters played by Abhishek Banerjee, Sumit Gulati and of course Rajpal Yadav as 'Jugnoo'. They ooze terror throughout the movie. It was great to see Rajpal Yadav doing a dark and negative role and he aced it. He's such a versatile actor. Also the movie keeps you on the edge of the seat throughout but the story and the plot is similar to NH10 starring Anushka Sharma.

Some of the negative aspects are continuity issues in some place, the actors not speaking in the chambal accent and few stretched scenes here and there.

Overall a good watch. Highly recommended.

With nothing new to offer this thriller is purely depends upon the screenplay that Keeps u going at a study place... Nikhil had been backed up with pretty good technical team where camera work is a major asset that captures the soul of raw & rustic plains of northern parts of India (Chambal),while the lighting during the night shots are a pleasant view to watch out... Tara sutaria might not be the best of her career but does justify to the role undoubtedly... Abhishek and Rajpal does a fantabulous job of typical freaks and are unpredictable with their wilder behaviour.... Overall a good popcorn movie to passout.

Apurva is the story of a girl named Apurva who gets kidnapped by a gang of four gangsters and how she manages to escape from their clutches is the main story . It basically carries the NH10 flavors in it.

Apurva starts off extremely well. The four gangsters played by Rajpal Yadav, Abhishek Bannerjee, Sumit Gulati and Aditya are introduced as goons who enjoy watching people dying, screaming in pain , crying etc . A sense of terror is well established at the start. This continues for the whole of first half when Apurva gets kidnapped.

However, from the second half onwards, the film dips. Not only does it become a bit repetitive but it feels Apurva is managing to outfox the goons pretty easily. Repetitive because it just involves a hide and seek game in one location (which gave me Honeycomb maze vibes from Takeshi's castle) and it seemed the goons don't put forward the best effort possible to search.

The goons also don't pose any major challenge to Apurva and hence Apurva manages to outfox them pretty easily. This was something i did not like at all. I felt the challenges posed could be greater.

Like I said performance wise everyone including Tara Sutaria have done a great job. In fact this is the first time Tara gets to feature in a proper meaty no-nonsense role. It's definitely visible that she's worked hard for the role of Apurva which genuinely needed some grit.

There's a lot of gory scenes in the film. The shots taken of blood and flesh were pretty disturbing.

Dhairya as Apurva's finance is a waste. At the end you will realise he's there for nothing. His parts in the present timeline could have easily been chopped off.

Overall, a decent one time watch. A better second half treatment could have made the film to NH10's level.