Badla

About the film

Badla (transl. Revenge) is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language mystery thriller drama film written and directed by Sujoy Ghosh. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu and Amrita Singh. It is produced by Universal Entertainment, Red Chillies Entertainment and Azure Entertainment and is a remake of the 2016 Spanish film The Invisible Guest. The story follows an interview between a lawyer and a businesswoman, in which the latter insists that she is being wrongfully framed for the murder of her lover.

Badla released on 8 March 2019, grossing over ₹1.38 billion (US$14 million) worldwide against a production budget of ₹370 million (US$3.9 million), thus emerging as a major commercial success. It received widespread critical acclaim, with high praise directed towards its adapted story and screenplay, dialogues, visuals, cinematography, and cast performances.

Plot

Naina Sethi is a sharp, ambitious young businesswoman in London with a seemingly perfect life, until her world is turned upside down when she's arrested for the murder of her lover, Arjun. Her lawyer, Jimmy Punjabi, hires renowned defence attorney Badal Gupta to help, and over the course of one evening, they work to uncover what really happened. Badal informs Naina that a witness will testify against her. Naina explains that she and Arjun were being blackmailed over their affair. They were summoned to a hotel, where she was attacked and later woke up to find Arjun dead, along with the money they had brought for the blackmailer. Although arrested, she's currently out on bail. The police found no evidence of anyone else being in the room or breaking in.

Badal suspects Naina is withholding the truth and presses her about the disappearance of a young man near the hotel. Naina then admits that a few months earlier, she and Arjun had gone to a cabin in the woods. On their way back, she accidentally hit another car, killing a young man named Sunny. Arjun convinced her not to report it (since Sunny had been texting while driving and not wearing his seat belt), and they covered up the accident. They put Sunny's body in his car's trunk, which Naina later dumped in a swamp. As Arjun waits for Naina in her car, an elderly couple Rani and Nirmal pass by the car. Nirmal offered to fix the car at their home, while Rani invited Arjun in to have tea. As he talks to Rani, he learns from a picture of Sunny in their house, that he is their son. Rani grew suspicious when she heard her son's phone ring in Arjun's pocket, as he had forgotten to get rid of it. Moreover, it worsened when Arjun is seen adjusting the driver's seat after the car was repaired. Arjun picks up Naina, details his encounter with the couple and Naina dumps in the car in a dump yard, reporting it to be stolen. The two part ways afterward.

Naina later saw news reports accusing Sunny of embezzling money from the bank where he worked before disappearing. She realised that Arjun had taken Sunny's wallet and used his wife's credentials to hack the bank and frame Sunny. Through the number plate, Rani identified Naina's car at the time of her son's disappearance, but Jimmy falsified an alibi. Although the police accepted it, Rani wasn't convinced. She confronted Naina at an event where she was awarded the ‘Businesswoman of the Year’. Rani begs her to reveal Sunny's whereabouts, but Naina kept up her lie. Months later, she and Arjun were contacted by a blackmailer, leading to the events that got her arrested.

Filming

The principal photography of the film began on 14 June 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Marketing and release

On 11 February 2019, Shah Rukh Khan, whose production house Red Chillies Entertainment is producing the film, tweeted two first look posters of the film, one with Bachchan's character and another with Pannu's. The film was released on International Women's Day, 8 March 2019 and is available online on Netflix. The film was certified by British Board of Film Classification with runtime of 118 minutes.

Three unplugged innovative promotional videos which involved a conversation between Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan were launched on 3 March 2019, 6 March 2019 and 9 March 2019 respectively, which also featured Taapsee Pannu, to promote the film.

"Main Sach Hi Toh Bol Rahi Hoon" was published on 25 February 2019, "Homework" on 28 February 2019, "Sab Ka Sach Alag Alag Hota Hai" on 1 March 2019 and "Mere Paas Teen Sawaal Hain" was published on 7 March 2019 on YouTube, featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu respectively.

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Amaal Mallik, Anupam Roy and Clinton Cerejo while the lyrics are penned by Kumaar, A. M. Turaz, Siddhant Kaushal, Manoj Yadav, Anupam Roy and Jizzy. Amitabh Bachchan, inspired by Ranveer Singh's Gully Boy, rapped the song "Aukaat".

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 63% of 16 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6/10.

Gaurang Chauhan reviewing for Times Now gave the film 3.5/5 stars and wrote, "Sujoy Ghosh delivers yet another interesting, enticing and an edge-of-the-seat mystery thriller." Rachit Gupta of The Times of India also rated the film with 3.5/5 stars saying, "The predictability of the screenplay dampens the thrills occasionally, also the climactic twist requires a healthy dose of suspense of disbelief. But, even the seasoned genre faithfuls will agree that 'Badla' offers a creative and thrilling end to a captivating mystery." Cinema200 too gave it 3.5/5 stars, praising the direction and climax. Taran Adarsh gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and found the film and its star-cast, captivating and brilliant.

Key details