Batla House Review

Batla House: Fairly Decent Dramatization of batla House Encounter Case

The premise

Remember the incident of Batla House when a couple of alleged terrorists and a police officer died when a scoop had been carried out to catch the Indian Mujahideen terrorists who were involved in blastings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Delhi, and Hyderabad? The John Abraham starrer is the story of ACP Sanjeev Kumar who was involved in the operation and later faced a lot of trouble for the encounter. 

Batla House Incident

The nearly forgotten incident and the aftermath is told through the eyes of the ACP in this Nikkhil Advani directorial. Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the blastings and might b the parent institute of Indian Mujahideen (IM). The movie starts on on the morning of  19 September 2008. Around the same time, Sanjay Kumar's (John Abraham's version of Sanjeev Kumar) personal life is in doldrums with his marital life is fast deteriorating. 

On the same day, the officers hot on the trail of the IM terrorists who were behind the blastings stumbles upon a terror cell in the now infamous Batla House in New Delhi. An exchange of fire rocked the city, and 2 Indian Mujahideen terrorists were killed in the and a special cell officer lost his life. Sanjeev Kumar now has to face the trouble of a court hearing as several questions were raised on the arrests and killings. How Sanjay Kumar comes out of this and what had really happened on the fateful day form the basis of this film. 

Performances

John Abraham has once again proved his prowess in depicting such roles as this. His body language, screen presence, and the way he expresses his anguish all added value to the film. The dialogues written for him are excellent. He brought intensity to the proceedings. Mrunal Thakur who sparkled in Super 30 plays the role of Sanjay Kumar's wife Nandita and did well. Ravi Kishan as Inspector Kishan Kumar Verma (the martyred) steals the show in a few scenes. Rajesh Sharma who appears in the court scenes is overly dramatic. Rest of the actors did as required. 

Writing and direction

The story of the film is the fictionalized depiction of the Operation Batla house which was one of the biggest remarks on the Delhi Police. The narration of the film is neat until the courtroom hearing. There are interesting and engaging moments there, all right, but we get a feeling that the scenes could have been avoided from being too dramatic. 

The screenplay of the film too faced the problems. But the way the action sequences are conceived and the trauma suffered by the ACP are well executed. The direction by Nikkhil Advani is not bad at all. As said earlier, the dialogues are well written. Ritesh Shah did a fine job here. 

The crew

The musical score added intrigue to the proceedings. The songs are decent. The cinematography captured various moods of the proceedings well. The lighting is just perfect. The editing is decent. The production design is excellent. The production values by T-Series and John Abraham Entertainment are superb. 

Finally

Batla House may not be a top-level film we all expect but still, it works just fine. The narrators didn't take any sides and the objective outlook helped the film. With strong performances by the lead actors and one of John Abraham's best works to date, Batla House is a one time watch to know about the  Batla House encounter case. 

Positives

• A primer on forgotten history
• John Abraham

Negatives

• The court proceedings could have been better

Pycker Rating: 2.75 out of 5