The Power: Loses The Plot
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2021-02-14 11:52:32
About the Author
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
View all posts by this Author
The Power, directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, is yet another adaptation of The Godfather. While the film is backed by impressive performance from Vidyut Jamwal and Manjrekar himself, it is let down by inconsistencies in the script and shoddy execution.
Although the story follows the Hollywood classic with an Indian twist for some time, it later adopts too many Bollywood cliches to fall flat. There have been other adaptations that were more gripping and executed better.
The Thakur family lords over the crime scene in Bombay. The patriarch, Kalidas Thakur (Mahesh Manjrekar) hates the drugs business and will have nothing to do with it. In the process, he makes enemies across the board. They make an attempt on his life but he survives. The younger son Devi (Vidyut Jamwal) is the Michael Corleone of this story. He loves Pari (Shruti Hasan), the daughter of their loyal retainer Anwar, works in Singapore is about to return there after marrying her when the assassination attempt takes place. Devi gets sucked into the family business of crime.
What follows is a tale of revenge laced with many twists and turns. Devi wants to kill those who tried to kill his father and later killed his brother. A scheming Ranjit (Pratiek Babbar), the son-in-law of the family, kills Anwar. So Pari vows to liquidate the entire Thakur clan. In the mayhem that follows, two questions are never answered. Kaildas Thakur knows from the beginning that Rana (Sachin Khedekar) is a snake who can sting any time. Yet the family keeps pandering to him till the very end while it kills others who are low on the suspicion list. Then it defies logic how Devi, who revered Anwar and was to marry his daughter, so easily believes that Anwar had become a traitor. Also, Devi's decision not to call Pari even once after the assassination attempt on his father, especially as he had left her waiting at the registrar's office, is incomprehensible.
The movie could have been made more gripping if Manjrekar had displayed even 50% of the magic of Vastav here. Granted Jamwal is no Sunjay Dutt but he looks good in the confrontation scenes and is a class by himself in the action sequences. Manjrekar excels as Kalidas Thakur. Shruti Hasan and the other actors, though competent, are constrained by poor writing.
