Delhi 47 km, Review: Keep safe distance

Title-wise, Delhi 47 sounds like Bombay 405 Miles, made in the 70s. That one did not have a great run, in spite of a star-cast and a reputed director. This one neither has a star cast nor a reputed director, but it does have an actor-writer-producer-director who either lacks knowledge about his responsibilities, or is incompetent and inept at executing them. And the odds that this will run or not run are 47: 1.

35 year-old Shadab Khann earlier wrote and directed a film called, B.A. Pass 2, a ‘sequel’ to B.A. Pass, neither of which I have seen. The latter was released last year, with a For Adults Only Certificate, and had some buzz. (The same producers had made B.A. Pass in 2013). It told the tale of a young girl from Bhopal, who wants to defy norms and traditions. After completing her studies, in order to avoid marriage, and against her father's wishes, the girl moves away, to Mumbai.

In Delhi 47 km, also for Adults Only, we follow the journey of Jigar (Shadab Khan), a loser, who is going through a court case about a land parcel on which his father’s dhaba is located, and Ateeq, and his son Sharjeel (Sharjeel Khan), who want to grab that land, which is strategically a goldmine. He makes mistakes, gets involved in drugs and gun-running and an innocent pushing a widow named Avni (Dolly Tomar), wife of his late accomplice, into selling her body as the price for providing food and shelter.

Along with this, there is a parallel track of a truck driver named Shankar (Rajneesh Dubey), who is had run over and killed a child, and who now tries to make amends by helping Avni and her little kid, named Mintoo (Mustaqeem Khan). But there are men around who will not let Shankar succeed, and are determined to use the boy as a gun-runner and Avni as bait, to please bigwigs. And all this happens in a place that is just 47 km away from the country’s capital, New Delhi.

It may sound as the premise for a promising film, but do not be misled. There is very, very little by way of good cinema that can be found in Delhi 47 km. One plus factor is the music, with tracks like ‘Yeh safar hae ya isey manzil samajh loon maen, Hae zindagee bey-vajah ya vajah samajh loon maen,’ in the voice of Sanoj Kumar, with music by Deepak Kumar, and the Warsi Brothers’ number, ‘Peer kee ghulami’, another tuneful contribution. Another good thing is the natural style of dialogue delivery and recurrent improvisation. However, in a film with hollow screenplay and below par production values, like cinematography (Ovais Khan) and editing (Yogesh Pandey and Vinay Patel), two tick-marks cannot take it any further.

Though a dark and grimy tale set in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh, the film begins in Goa, with an RJ welcoming his listeners to haven island. It is here that a writer is narrating the story to his girl-friend, pretending to be an acquaintance of the protagonist. While the film’s audience soaks up the curvy lines of actress Neetiy Yadav’s body, Jigar goes on about the pessimistic affairs in his story. She eggs him on to look at the sunny side of life (Goa, anyone?), and as her role ends, we are transported to the above goings on.

Heroine of the film, Dolly Tomar hails from the same region where the plot is set. Cast as a woman married to an older, criminal-minded person who is bumped, leading her into prostitution, she has little to do but wail and suffer. Shadab Khan is casual to a fault uninvolved. Rajneesh Dubey shows some acting acumen. Sharjeel Khan is loud and bombastic. Utkarsh Dubey makes no mark, going about his tasks monotonously. Mustakeem mumbles self-consciously. Also in the cast are Bobby Vats and Bahadur Singh Dangi.

There are too many holes in the screenplay and direction to list here, and Shadab Khann’s abilities and capabilities do not suggest that he has ventured far into the domain of film-making and acting. Instead, one feels that the film was made on a shoe-string budget and then the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) decided to delete some 30 minutes of screen-time. Most of the scenes are incomplete and in many places, we find the characters lip syncing to silence. Either the CBFC has cut it to an ill-fitting size, or the makers have released an incomplete film.

Realistic subject and realistic acting, including frequent overlapping of dialogue, are all very well, if you have all the other departments functioning to optimum revels. Dialogue very often begins with “Are yaar…” and end ends with “…yaar”, no matter who is speaking, and the vocabulary of the players seems to be very limited as well as contagious. Since audio is bad, the film needed very strong visual elements, which are woefully lacking.

My advice to those who are planning to see this film: either speed past the cinema hall, or take a U-turn. Either way, keep safe distance, for watching Delhi 47 is injurious to cinematic sensibilities. You could end up, metaphorically speaking, like Jigar’s upper-middle class father, who takes to the bed the moment he learns that someone is eyeing his land and doesn’t speak a word after that. Or, conversely, you might have few words to say to the makers that we critics cannot mouth, when we are subjected to films like this.

Rating: *

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyutNN88v9Q

P.S.: The producer-director has since clarified that the CBFC has cut only one shot, that of a woman being beaten.