Gumraah Movie Review: A convoluted screenplay makes this a drab thriller

The Hindi film industry seems to be under some sort of dry spell, propelling itself to churn out films that seek stories from the South. Close on the heels of Bholaa, the remake of Kaithi (2019), Hindi cinema is back with yet another remake, Gumraah, which is the remake of Arun Vijay-Magizh Thirumeni’s Thadam. However, Gumraah opts for the familiar tropes instead of taking a compelling route to tell the borrowed narrative.

Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, Mrunal Thakur, Vedhika Pinto, and others

Director: Vardhan Ketkar

Gumraah is a lot of things. It is a whodunit. It is the story of a dysfunctional family. It is a reflection of man's extreme temptations. It is about the butterfly effect. It is about the biases of people, even if they are in positions of power. Despite having all these themes, Gumraah fails to provoke a sense of satisfaction when you walk out of the cinema halls. Instead, its only residue is the convoluted narration that does not have a lasting impact.

The film starts off with a murder taking place at a posh bungalow and the makers leave no stone unturned to carefully stress the portions that can potentially serve as evidence of the crime scene. There is no surprise that the killer is played by Aditya Roy Kapur, who finishes off a resident, Akash Sardana, by stabbing him multiple times with a screwdriver. Why show the same stabbing sequence multiple times with no additional or substantial observations? We are also introduced to SI Shivani Mathur (Mrunal Thakur) who takes no time to envision the exact modus operandi, and yet she misses a crucial piece of evidence that would have long solved the case.

Gumraah, in its first half, is fast-paced, and explores the twin roles of Aditya Roy Kapur — Arjun Sehgal, a suave, well-settled single man with a white-collar job, and Suraaj Rana, a street-smart rookie, who has a particularly sharp knowledge on law. After coming across an important photograph, the lookalikes are brought under custody. With major portions of the film set within the police station, Gumraah manages to capture some subtleties that are seen within the four walls of police stations. There is casual profiling on one side, and we see how Shivani is determined of Arjun's innocence. This naivete is a reflection of the casual sexism. Oh, Suraaj's sidekick is subject to some garden-variety body shaming. I am not here to say the original didn't have all of this, but why to repeat the flaws in the remake? Even the portions that involve Arjun’s romance with Janhvi, a film critic (thankfully we know her name and occupation but we never get to see her actually work), seem very artificial.

Essentially, Gumraah allows Aditya to exhibit his acting chops, but despite his sincere efforts, the characters seem to be just a reflection of the other, barring their costume and apparel choices. They are twins and they do share a bond, but the actor hardly makes it believable. Mrunal puts on a perennial poker face without the barest of reactions.

Gumraah plays safe in some instances by not moving farther from its source material. It also subtly talks about biases that humans can form, that too in the most volatile of venues, the police stations. The remake also gives enough fodder to think about how people from privileged backgrounds come with a sense of superiority even if they are suspects. There is also a setup of two dysfunctional families, which receive enough room to explore complicated emotions. For example, Arjun and Suraaj come from a broken family where the parents have strained relationships and questionable habits. However, they never vilify their parents.

All that Gumraah needed was some clean screenplay to dish out its never-ending twists and turns, and when it fails on an essential requirement, there is nothing that can stop the film from being a drab experience... not even two Aditya Roy Kapurs.