Absolute review: Hindutva : A political drama, tells the story of India

By: Aakruti Bagla

Director: Karan Razdan

Cast: Aashiesh Sharrma, Sonarika Bhadoria, Ankit Raj, Deepika Chikhalia, Anup Jalota

Runtime: 2h 24min

Rating: 3/5

Story

The film revolves around the theme of how religious propaganda can cause mayhem in the society and how unity can curb it.

Hindutva is about two childhood best friends Bharat and Sameer who are divided by their individual ideologies. While Bharat tries to educate the world that the true meaning of HINDUTVA is Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam, Sameer, a popular student leader believes that his community is discriminated against. He poses to be a leftist, one who is fighting to protect his community. He is in love with Sapna, and Sapna also loves his dynamism and leadership in the University. But what happens when Sapna gets to know about Sameer’s evil intentions? What happens when the two ideologies clashes? Will there be peace or destruction? The rest of the film answers these questions.

Review:

The film truly tests the depths of Hinduism. And debates the concepts of Patriotism and Nationalism. Apart from having an engaging screenplay, such a film rest on hard-hitting dialogue and powerful performances by the cast.

The storyline of Hindutva is exhilarating and exciting, but only in fragments, making for a passable experience on the big screen. The first half is interesting, but the subsequent events like romantic portions between and unneeded flashbacks drag and add on to the runtime.

This story contains plenty of blood, sweat, and grit, but not a lot of true emotion. However, it’s the smartly written hard-hitting dialogues that are the pioneer of the film and plays a major role in uplifting its tonality.

Speaking of performances, Aashiesh Sharma as Bharat has literally breathed the character and efforts are palpable. Be it being a humorous, delivering dialogues effortlessly, and maintaining the guy-next-door vibe, the actor aces his part. His conflict with Sameer Siddiqui, Ankit Raaj forms some of the interesting portions of the film. Ankit is fantastic in his parts, albeit the emotional portions. Sonarika Bhadoria as Sapna delivers a decent performance, and is pleasing to watch. While Deepika Chikhalia as Guru Maa lends adequate support in the progression of the story, the rest of the cast play their respective portions well.

Talking of other technical aspects, The camerawork efficiently captures the grim vibe and beauty of Uttarakhand and Dehradun. The runtime and music act as a major dampener of the whole flick with the background score working well.

Conclusion

The film’s larger issue revolves around the topic of Love Jihad and religion propaganda and rightly makes a strong case that it’s evil and an attempt should be made to curb this practice. With its fiery dialogues, it can make a strong case. However, with no novel treatment and fine performances, the audience should not expect out-of-the-box.