Starring: Divya Khosla, Anil Kapoor, Harshvardhan Rane, Raageshwari, Himanshi Choudhary, M.K. Raina
Director: Abhinay Deo
The backdrop for this latest Bollywood Netflix thriller is the divine Hindu coupling of Savitri ‘Savi’ and Satyayan – the story of a mythological princess who rescues her husband from the jaws of death.
Savi Sachdev (Khosla) is living a blissful life as a simple housewife with her hard-working architect husband Nakul Sachdev (Rane) and their little son in the British city of Liverpool. Their happy home is suddenly turned topsy-turvy when police come knocking at the door to arrest Nakul for the suspected murder of his female boss.
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Despite his desperate denials and not-guilty pleas, a mountain of circumstantial evidence results in the police investigation led by Detective Ayesha Hassan (Choudhary) concluding otherwise and landing him behind bars for life. Savi is left heartbroken and helpless until kindly neighbour Simrit (Raageshwari), also from Punjab where the Sachdevs had migrated to the UK from, steps in to not only offer a shoulder to cry on but also the morale boost to set matters on a different course.
The once meek and diminutive housewife decides to take matters into her own hands to free her innocent husband from prison and restart life in a third country with no extradition treaty with the UK. In this seemingly impossible mission, she finds an unlikely champion in Joydeep Paul (Kapoor), who is leading an underground existence ever since his own jailbreak documented in a bestseller. Inspired by his success, Savi pursues this recluse doggedly for training to pull off a similar daring escape. Will the docile housewife be able to take on the fierce avatar needed for her audacious mission, or will the cops catch up with her just in time?
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The plot of this film is conceived as an edge-of-the-seat thriller, but it is let down by some rather sketchy characterisations and less-than-convincing motivations. The groundwork required for the audience to fully buy into Savi’s dogged pursuit of her goal seems to have been forgotten somewhere on the editing table.
Anil Kapoor brings some much-needed acting heft to a film that would have otherwise floundered completely off the rails. The outcome is a watchable film that is devoid of the thrills that should have been pretty simple to factor into this promising script.