Movie Review: Udta Punjab

Let me start with the first feeling I had after seeing Udta Punjab - I have hope for the Hindi film industry! After a period of Dark Ages (the 80s and 90s), the last few years have been relatively better. We see a regular (again relatively) stream of good movies releasing once or twice a month. And that’s making me hope again:). Once in a while, you get to see a movie by a serious film maker, who believes in the art and not just the moolah. It may still be a masala enough movie like Kahaani, but at least its different and enjoyable. And I love watching these movies!

Udta Punjab falls in this category - it is not a typical Hindi movie. There is a background of the Punjab drug problem, and then there are the characters in the movie through which the problem is delved into further. The flow of the story is good, keeping you involved the whole time. The acting is superb - Alia Bhatt needs no words and Diljit Dosanjh is a natural. Kareena felt a little over the top, playing Preet from Jab We Met while Shahid played the role well but he still seemed a bit loud. Alia’s story was the one which made you connect with the most though - her helplessness and her hopefulness get to you, both make you a part of her ordeal and hope for her. Overall also, the movie was well made and there are no two ways about it.

But what affected me a lot more was the backdrop. In the last couple of years, I had heard about the drug problem in Punjab in discussions with family and friends. I had heard that the entire current generation is spoilt because of this addiction. And that the police and politicians are involved. Even though I never read about it in the media, I was always aware of what was going on.

But even then, seeing how the problem is actually playing out and the enormity of it affected me a lot. The feeling of helplessness - of not knowing what to do, where to go, how to protest against this terrible ill - made me feel uneasy. In the movie, this was portrayed in two scenes. One - when Diljit Dosanjh, even after being in the police did not know who to go to with his proofs was eye opening. He couldn’t even go to his boss as his boss himself was deeply involved in it! If someone in the police itself can be so helpless, imagine the plight of the common man? In the movie though, they show the Election Commission as the alternative, though I feel it is not powerful enough, but we can let that pass.

The second scene which demonstrated this helplessness was when Alia escapes from the house, and runs into the crowds at the concert. You would assume she would be safe there, but when she see the police and is planning to go to them, she sees the officer who was involved with the drug lords and so has to run away from there too!! It was heatwrenching to see that even after escaping from her captors, she had nowhere to go where she could be safe!

I think this was the feeling that I came back with, the systems in our country are such that sometimes you are unsafe everywhere, there is no place you can feel safe if you are running from the powerful. And that is very scary. Another telling point to the same effect was that in the end, the guilty politician only has an investigation running against him, he wasn't arrested yet (and will never be). Even with all the proof stacked against him!! Says something, right?

Am going with 4.5 stars for the movie.

By the way, the whole hulla against the movie being a political film was totally misdirected. It was more a social commentary rather than a political one and the Censor Chief really needs to get his act straight.