Vedaa movie review: John Abraham and Sharvari starrer packs a brave and gusty punch to the caste system

Vedda review

Inspired by actual events - killings of inter-caste couples ordered by kangaroo courts in the backwaters of north India. ‘Vedaa’ is the story of a Dalit girl Vedaa (Sharvari) from Bamer - a village in Rajasthan. Vedaa has dreams and desires to grab a sports quota that will help her in getting a job (preferably a government job). When the college introduces boxing training, Vedaa smells an opportunity and signs up. Vedaa knows how the upper cast will take her decision and she does gets signed up – courtesy Jitin Pratap Singh (Abhishek Banerjee) – the Pradhan of the village who controls many villages an upper caste Thakur who holds a degree in Engineering.

But the Pradhan’s progressive thinking and public statements of no caste discrimination are complete fake, he strongly believes in the caste divide which according to him has been designed by Gods. Vedaa who wants to improve her life in the caste oppressed village of Bamer in Rajasthan gets humilitated and beaten up by Pradhan’s violent and arrogant brother, Suyog (Kshitij Chauhan). A court-martialled Army Major - Abhimanyu (John Abraham) comes to Barmer and Vedaa finds courage and hope.

Vedaa movie review

‘Vedaa’ – directed by Nikkhil Advani and written by Aseem Arora wants to highlight the caste divide, the injustice to the lower caste, the idea to bring out their pain and suffering and is told in an unconventional way with conventional characters and designed on a main stream action entertainer format.

It needs guts to bring such a movie on India’s Independence Day and Nikkhil deserves a pat on his back for this. Having John Abraham as the no nonsense Army officer court-martialled for not following orders landing in a village where the system, law and order are slaves of the powerful upper caste Pradhan and the army officer finds a bond with this oppressed Dalit girl Vedaa.

The writing by Aseeem Arora is based on conventional main stream format which has its shares of cliches, but the characters and their behaviour is not on the routine Bollywood action thriller format.  The villain, the faith of Sharvari in the constitution and the way the pain and suffering of the Dalits is put forward makes ‘Vedaa’ different from the run of the mill stuff. Interestingly, this not that run of the mill stuff has citi maar action which makes this an interesting combo.

Making Sharvari as law student and showing her faith and confidence in the constitution and adding the tagline – samvidhan ka rakshak (the gender should have been changed – samvidhan ki rakshak hona chahiye tha) explains that the makers have the heart at the right place.

Sharvari is fighting for her fundamental right to live with dignity and reminds us of equality.  Vedaa wants to learn boxing and says ‘survival of the fittest’ to her upper caste friend. Boxing is the apt metaphor used over here for telling us about her struggle and fight, other metaphor – the firing in the court during the climax serves as a mirror of the situation where law and order is in the hands of the powerful and they have gone bersek. Though people may find this over the top.

Anyways, the action in ‘Vedaa’ is superb.

Performance

John Abraham plays to his strength and is outstanding.

Sharvari is a revelation, this is her best performance till date and it’s a dream role for any actress and her Sharvari has done a great job.

Abhishek Banerjee as Jitendar Pratap Singh is fabulous, not the conventional Thakur seen in Hindi cinema.

Kshitij Chauhan as Suyog Pratap Singh makes a very good impression.

Tamannaah Bhatia as Raashi is good. Ashish Vidyarthi as Kaka is fine. Kumud Mishra as Mausaji brings an interesting twist and he is good as usual. Rajendra Chawla as Vedaa's father does very well. Tanvi Malhara as Gehna, Vedaa's sister makes her mark, Anurag Thakur as Vinod, Vedaa's elder brother is good

Good support comes from Urvashi Dubey as Aarti, Vinod's fiance, Rajoshri Vidyarthi as Vedaa's mother, Danish Husain as the boxing coach. Kapil Nirmal as API Bhimsen Purohit, Paritosh Sand as Headmaster Uttamlal Singh.

Mouni Roy in the item number "Mummy Ji" is just passable.

Flaws

Conventional action buffs may find the pace slow, at times songs are an hindrance, the movie gets predictable, it needs a certain degree of suspension of disbelieve.

Vedaa – final words

Vedaa is an unconventional action thriller that is brave and different in landing its punches on the caste divide. John Abraham and Sharvari deliver solid acts. Nikkhil Advani addresses the oppression of the Dalit’s and shouts for women empowerment on India’s 78^th Independence Day.

Going with 3.5 stars

Vedaa is running in theatres