The CLASS OF 83 Netflix Movie Review
Class of 83 is a drama movie, about a batch of police officers, who became famed encounter specialists. This movie is released on Netflix. The backdrop of the story is the early 80’s, when Mumbai was in the grip of notorious gangsters. The film is inspired by a book named The Class of 83:The Punishers of Mumbai Police by S. Hussain Zaidi, which in turn is based on the lives of real-life cops, who trained under DGP, when he was head of the Maharashtra Police Academy.
The film begins with a disclaimer, which says it is a work of fiction, which is followed by a quote from Plato, which says: “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”. Which presumably provides the justification for killing bad people, without arrest or trial. The vigilante cop is a staple of Hindi cinema. From Salman Khan in Dabangg, to Ajay Devgn in the Singham series, to Rani Mukerji in Mardaani. We’ve seen a slew of trigger-happy cops, who side step political interference and institutional corruption by breaking the law. It’s an immensely satisfying fantasy, which allows us, the audience, to believe that justice has been served.
Class of 83 offers little innovation on the time-worn theme. Except perhaps the counter-intuitive casting of Bobby Deol as Dean Vijay Singh, the tough and tortured head of the Academy. Deol is best-known for putting his urbane good-looks to good use in 90s blockbusters like Gupt and Soldier. The dean is a man with a tragic past and a poker face. Bobby’s frayed handsomeness underlines the Dean’s grief. He’s a committed, honest cop, which is why he’s at the Academy on a punishment posting. But Vijay Singh decides to subvert the system by training five cadets to take down gangsters. He calls it an experiment — as he puts it, the five will function like antibodies, who will clean the disease from within the body.
He gives these backbenchers a talk about, why he’s chosen them, saying, “Tum log dosti nibha lete ho, lekin sach bhi bol lete ho, rules todte ho, lekin usool nahi chodte, fail hote ho lekin apni sharton par“. The cadets are played by newcomers Ninad Mahajani, Bhupendra Jadawat, Sameer Paranjape, Hitesh Bhojraj and Prithvik Pratap, all of whom deliver solid performances. Casting new actors as newbies adds conviction to the narrative, because no actor asks for more attention. Each one serves the story and the first part of the film follows their lives in the police academy and the latter follows the batch, as they embark on their careers.
Atul has a great talent for creating grim worlds. Here he and DoP Mario Poljac workwith a palette of brown and dull green. There’s mist, rain, shadows and the sun rarely shines, literally or metaphorically. The textures of 80’s Mumbai are skillfully constructed with attention to period details. There are gorgeous shots of Marine Drive with minimal traffic and a shoot-out in a dhow. The atmospherics are enhanced by Viju Shah’s thumping, old-school background score. Atul choreographs the changing group dynamics and the splintering of this group with finesse.
To begin with, the subject matter induces fatigue. Little about the plot feels new or urgent. And the script by Abhijeet Shirish Deshpande relies too much on exposition, which is provided by Aslam’s voice-over. The writing doesn’t flesh out the cadets or the Dean enough. Some are provided a defining feature, but we don’t get a sense of them as people. They are, for the most part, one note-characters. Bobby delivers the pathos and frustration of the Dean in several scenes, but in others, he seems to be posturing. And some of his dialogue is melodramatic, not in a good way. At one point, he asks: “Koi kya kare agar woh apne aas paas kaamkarne walon se behtar ho, system se behtar ho, gala ghot de woh apne talent ka, ban jaye mediocre kisi50 crore, 100 crore members ki tarah”.
Geetika Tyagi, who played a key role in Powder, helps to break up the overwhelming masculinity of this world, with her graceful presence, but there isn’t enough for her to do. She’s only there to give the Dean a back story and again, it’s a one we’ve seen before. The faces are new, but the portrayal of the system, corruption, the utter lawlessness of both cops and criminals, is familiar. The film offer new insight or characters, compelling enough to make this material feel fresh. To know more about the Story Details of GUNJAN SAXSENA Movie.
