Bheed Review - Wear The Mask On Your Eyes To Avoid This Infection

Anubhav Sinha's Bheed, starring Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, and Pankaj Kapur, is said to be based on the migration of labourers during the early days of lockdown in 2020. That's not true, though. There are many other factors here, from police morals to casteism, Hindu-Muslim hatred, upper-class negativity, corrupt journalism, brutal governorships, and what have you. The basic thing that was required was "pain," and I didn't find it anywhere. Bheed is a terrible film, but before that, it's an even worse script. The timing is wrong too. People are now coming over those horrible days and are up to a new beginning in their lives and they don't want to recall those nightmares of the pandemic. Why would anyone want to see what they want to forget? And where was that realistic cinema here? A film set in the early days of lockdown—extremely strict days were those I tell you—and yet, 95% of portion of the film sees people not wearing masks? Like, seriously?Bheed starts off with a narration of lockdown (as if we didn't know what it was), and then subtitles help you realise that there are people who are on migration. Thousands, actually lakhs, of people are migrating from cities to their villages, but by walking since buses and other vehicles are shut. Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao) is appointed as the new officer in charge of a small checkpoint in Tejpur since his senior officer has to take care of his own parents. A little nervous about these new responsibilities, Surya tries to keep things under control with utter honesty. However, his control is devastated when he has to handle ample people coming from different areas at the same time. During this calm process of a few hours, he advises people to stay put while ministers are discussing new plans in a secret meeting. His plans are shattered when he comes to know that there is no meeting, and now he has to take control of the situation while the canoodle is getting furious. He is joined by his girlfriend, colleagues, a group of Muslim people travelling in a bus, a relative of a powerful politician, an urban-class woman who wants to go to her daughter, and subsequently by his senior officer.Bheed is a bad script right from the beginning. In the first 10 minutes, you hardly see any policemen or people walking in a group wearing a mask, and you realise how fake this show is going to be. I remember going to a market in the first month of lockdown; it was so strict and unavoidable to wear a mask and keep social distance. I remember every policeman wearing a mask and not going close to anyone while talking, including themselves. Here, not a single policeman behaved so. Whenever I used to come home from the market or any place outside, my mother used to give me sanitizer on the door and then let me in. She never allowed me to touch anything in the house before sanitising my hands and washing them carefully. I saw all my friends, neighbours, and relatives doing the same. But here, you see a policeman and his girlfriend coming and directly getting involved in sexual intercourse. No sanitiser, no washing hands or no bath, and believe it or not he was a policeman and she was a nurse—two persons who were closest to Covid-19 infected people. What the hell?I lost interest in the first 15 minutes only after seeing so much stupidity, but later, it got worse. From where did that casteism angle come? Tikas, full name—who the hell cared and asked for it? A journalist not wearing a mask, seriously? I am a journalist myself, and I haven't seen any of my colleagues go out on the field without a mask in 2020. Suddenly, that humiliating India angle came.. from where, Bhai, and why? A cameraman clicking pictures of poor women sitting on the ground is a sign of disgrace? Who even imagined that it would go up to a green card within a minute? A woman who wants to get to her daughter is more concerned about her husband's victory and shamefully follows a girl on a bicycle. What's the explanation? Why did she shout at her driver for helping the girl? Arre, you are from the urban section; just open a Google Map on your phone and find a short cut. Why do you have to follow a bicycle with a car? How can a screenplay be so dumb? Who on earth thought of Hindu-Muslim hatred here? For what sake did that Naxalism reference have to be used? Why can't you stick to lockdown and migration issues? Who even had time to think about aukat and prestige issues then? The police have been praised and even worshipped by people in their societies for the work they have done for us, and here you are making fun of it? Bheed is not a film; it's a joke. Even that troll material, "Thaali Andolan Reels," made more sense than this.Rajkummar Rao's performance is a slight relief for you in this disaster show, but as a fan and admirer, I want to ask what happened to your script sense? One or two bad films are okay, I can understand that, but back-to-back disappointments are so disheartening. Where is that Rajkummar who used to choose scripts like Shahid, Newton, Aligarh, Kai Po Che, Queen, Trapped, and Stree I, sorry, WE miss you badly. Bhumi Pednekar is also going through the same phase, but thankfully, her acting skills aren't barred. Pankaj Kapur still has the same charisma, and Aditya Srivastava, as a cop, just can't go bad. Talents like Kritika Kamra and Dia Mirza are wasted by the writers and the director. Ashutosh Rana and Virendra Saxena are somewhat okay, and that's understandable.Bheed causes a certain irksome hour for you with a tedious black-and-white show. I know and I can understand why the film converted to black and white, but I don't see the script and execution finding the right balance to prove the given point. It was supposed to portray black memories, but it does everything besides that. There is drama—so much drama—unnecessarily, and the characters are dragged into the worthless mud. The editing is strictly okay, as it was less than two hours long, yet it felt boring sometimes. Anubhav Sinha makes a hat-trick of bad films. After a forgettable filmography till 2016, he took a new birth with Mulk (2018) and Article 15 (2019), but then he went to the dead zone again with Thappad (2020) and Anek (2022). Bheed takes him even lower. This has to be one of his worst films in recent times, and besides the box office, I expect a lot of humiliation from the public, if not critics. Bheed just didn't go right, not even in one aspect. The only two good scenes in the film are one, that cement mixer revelation, and second one is the end—not because the torture ends, but it's really a good end. Then there are intertitles about migration and police treatment, which are useful, but good intertitles don't mean good cinema. As a whole, this is an awfully bad film. Not your noses, but your eyes need those masks to protect you from this.