Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Geetanjali Thapa.
Directed by: Vikramaditya
Motwane.
A man gets trapped inside a flat in Mumbai
with little means of communication with the outside world.
If the name of the movie doesn’t give the plot away, the trailer
surely does.
What separates ‘Trapped’ from ‘Castaway’ and ‘127 Hours’ is the
fact that unlike other survivor dramas, the protagonist here isn’t stuck in the
middle of nowhere, he is very much in a metropolitan city, but oh-so-alone.
Rajkummar Rao plays Shaurya, a man who is desperate in more ways
than one.
There isn’t much of a back-story shown but thanks to the clever
writing, direction and performance, one can figure out the missing details. As things
stand, in the beginning of the movie, Shaurya is a bachelor who stays in a
shared rented apartment and like so many of us, manages to survive in the
Maximum city, just barely.
He finds romance in office in the form of Noori (played by a very
capable Geetanjali Thapa, who shines in spite of the limited screen-time) and chain
of events lead to him shifting his residence to a flat in the yet to be
occupied high-rise building ironically named ‘Swarg’.
And yes, all of this happens within the first 15 minutes of the film.
In a set of circumstances that seem scarily possible, he gets
trapped inside his flat; what is somewhat far-fetched though is the happy combination
of coincidences - no-one is aware of Shaurya's whereabouts, neither does anyone seem to note his disappearance from office, there’s no electricity, his
cellphone is out of charge and his apartment has limited and unpredictable supply
of water, these are of course explained in the plot, but the coming together of such chances are hard to overlook
nevertheless.
What follows thereafter forms the movie, and it is as much as
Shaurya’s journey as it is the viewers, the (luckily) semi-furnished apartment
becomes our jail as much as it is his. We celebrate his little victories and
suffer as he suffers, and this is where the Director and Rajkummar Rao triumph.
‘Trapped’ makes you feel for the protagonist, you wonder what you
would have done if you were in his place, you squirm uncomfortably as his
desperation grows and he almost descends into insanity. It is a film that grabs
you by the collar and forces you to feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
It reminds you that the most crowded places can, in the right
circumstances, be the loneliest.
Superb!
The sounds play more than an active part in this, refer to the
trailer to know what I mean.
Rajkummar Rao is fantastic, it’s tough to imagine anyone else play
this role with as much conviction as he does. Brilliant casting. His take on the
small town guy (I assume) in the big city, who has grand plans but little means
is as believable as it gets. Having said that, he has played somewhat similar
characters in different circumstances before (CityLights, Queen).
Kudos to Vikramaditya Motwane for this film, he is now three films
old, and they are as different as they can be. Also, because he hasn’t succumbed
to directing typical potboilers yet, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Special mention of the scene at the Hospital - pulls at your
heartstrings, despite the predictability.
There are loopholes of course, apart from the coincidences
mentioned above, one wonders from where Shaurya manages the seemingly unending reservoir
of matchsticks, how he becomes a champion slingshot marksman (perhaps because
he grew up in a small town?), how he possesses the strength (of body and mind) to
do what he does in the last 30 minutes of the movie, in spite of his limited
food supply – but all that can be forgiven in the larger scheme of things.
I watched ‘Trapped’ on a lazy Sunday evening and was pleasantly
surprised at the packed hall; the fact that an unconventional movie made on a
shoestring budget and devoid of ‘stars’, item numbers, and buzz surrounding its
release could pull in such a crowd is testament to the fact that Bollywood and
viewers have come off age.
Now if only the rest of the stakeholders woke up to that fact.
RATING: 3.5/5
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