Dhaakad Movie Review: Kangana Ranaut's Spy Thriller Barely Makes You Say 'She's On Fire'

Story

Dhaakad opens in Budapest where Agent Agni aka Dragonfly (Kangana Ranaut) is assigned a task to rescue a bunch of trafficked girls. Despite losing her partner, code-named Seagull, in an ambush, Agni succeeds in her mission.

With a horrific past of her own repressed in her memories, Agni reluctantly flies down to India upon the insistence of her mentor-cum-intel chief Ringmaster (Saswata Chatterjee) to nab Rudraveer (Arjun Rampal), the mastermind behind the international trafficking cartel and the coal mafia. He has been off the radar for several years, and Agni takes it upon herself to hunt him down.

She also strikes an unusual friendship with one of her aide's daughter Zaira. Rudraveer along with his girlfriend and business partner Rohini (Divya Dutta) continue to create havoc with their illegal activities and brutal atrocities. On the other hand, Agni soon turns into a killing machine, going all guns blazing, slashing and leaving behind heap of dead bodies.

Will she finally put an end to merciless Rudraveer's growing empire spreading its vicious wings across the globe?

Direction

Dhaakad might come across a solid one-liner idea on paper but writers Razneesh Ghai and Chintan Gandhi fail to pen an engrossing story. The haphazard screenplay is one of the biggest drawbacks of this espionage thriller. The constant fleeting of the narrative between Budapest and India is a major distraction.

Instead of a watertight, slick outing, director Razneesh Ghai offers you a film which appears more like random action sequences strewn together. Even Kangana's character's backstory lacks an emotional connect to strike a chord. The clunky execution adds more to the damage. As things get more and more ridiculous especially in the last half an hour or so, you wonder if this is what you had signed up for!

Performances

Even a fine talent like Kangana Ranaut can't save this film from being a colossal disappointment. The flimsy script barely gives her a chance to breath fire in her role. Except a couple of action scenes where she amazes you with her flexibility and clean moves, there isn't much to take away from her character.

Arjun Rampal oozes swag and deadliness in the flashback portions. However, in the latter scenes, he turns into a blond-haired, lullaby-singing villain who chooses to talk in hoarse whispers. Not so cool!

Divya Dutta as Arjun Rampal's partner-in-crime is reduced to a garish caricature who hardly sends a shiver down the spine. Sharib Hashmi and his annoying Bhopali accent are forgettable.

Technical Aspects

Japanese cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata's camerawork is the only silver lining of Dhaakad. With the brilliant hues of red, blue, grey and green, he builds up a fantasy world of blood, gore and guns. Dhruv Ghanekar's background score is jarring.

Music

The Dhaakad title song lends adrenaline rush in spurts. 'So Ja Re' makes so many appearances that you fear that it would really put you to sleep. The rest of the songs are run-of-the-mill.

Verdict

In one of the scenes in the film, Arjun Rampal's Rudraveer says, "Katputliyaa hai hum sab dor upar wale ke haath mein hai abhi bhi". No wonder, Razneesh Ghai's amateurish execution reduces Kangana Ranaut's film to a blank shell.