Considering recent attacks, few events have rocked the nation as destructively as the ‘93 blasts that shook Bombay, the finest symbol of India’s economic strength. Triggering mass murders, violence that continues to exist in the aftermath and a surge of human anger fuelled by baseless religious extremism, the outcome has been devastating for the city of dreams. Zaidi’s book harnessed the emotions into words brilliantly, but it’s Anurag Kashyap’s pen-to-celluloid act that really creates a long-lasting impact, so I thought of recalling that review here.
Interestingly, while I was doing that, I found the man himself at his blog on PFC. The guy can write, but hey, wasn’t Satya testimony to that already?
Black Friday’s plot kicks off with the bomb blasts in the city, and the investigations surrounding it. Inspector Rakesh Maurya (Kay Kay Menon) is appointed to lead a hand-picked team of his choice to commence the pursuit with the leads that follow. The prime accused is Tiger Memon (Pawan Malhotra) who was responsible for arranging the funds, logistics, and of course, brainwashing his forces, pushing hurt Muslims to his fabricated vengeance of the Babri Masjid incident and the riots that followed where both faiths lost many followers. With ever stone turned, and as every suspect transforms into a criminal that divulge information, darker stories begin to flow into the police force.
Ably supported by his colleague Dangle (Kishore Kadam) who personifies the typical paan-chewing Bombay ruthless cop, they uncover a series of clues and make many arrests, often using third-degree to extract information.
On the run is Baadshah Khan (Aditya Srivastava), a key accused and aide of Tiger Memon, as he flees from Delhi to his village (Rampur), Rajasthan and back to Rampur, awaiting Memon’s instructions on how escape out of the country. Time and the law finally catch up with him, as he’s taken into custody and interrogated for information. His story is quite unique, in the sense, his transformation from a blood-thirsty extremist to a helpless convict, realising that the Memon he believed to be a redeemer of his faith actually used him as a pawn for a baseless benefit.
The cast’s performances are outstanding - Aditya and Pawan churn out brilliant acts. Pawan’s Tiger-bhai is exceptionally well enacted, maintaining his cool composure in the midst of arrests, and his ruthlessness for those against him. The Dawood-touch is exciting, more so as Vijay Maurya resembles the underworld don to the T. But the real stand-out performance here lies with Kay Kay Menon, his captivating screen presence accentuated by the red dened backdrop is an honest picturization of the police efforts that went into cracking the case. Interestingly, as Kay Kay plays the complete ruthless cop to perfection, he channels out his frustration and anguish in solitude, a mark of maturity, control over one’s emotions, that every law enforcer would love to have.
The camerawork is sleek, as the picturization in general remained above average. Complementing the movie were real-life snippets of actual footage after the blast, but I personally did not find them to add much to the genuineness that it attempted to. The thin layer of Indian Ocean’s soul-stabbing instrumentals at the heart of Black Friday’s most critical scenes really do it for the viewer. This band has progressed to new heights, one can only hope to (see and) hear more of them in the future.
This is a brilliant work of art, fearlessly plunging into documentary territory to put the facts on the table, portraying raw human emotions, or the lack of it in the law enforcers’ ruthlessness. What makes it so very pure is it’s loyalty to the adversity, and Zaidi’s ink.
The only blemish on this masterpiece? Maybe it’s a personal choice, but I genuinely was amused to know that bananas are kept in refrigerators.
Like Parzania, this one also carries Gandhi’s message against the violent masses, coined exceptionally that only a man of Gandhi’s deep thinking could, “an eye for an eye made the whole world blind”
