Apurva Movie Review: Tara Sutaria's Film is a Missed Opportunity When It Comes to Crafting a Gripping Survival-Thriller (LatestLY Exclusive)

Apurva Movie Review: Apurva, written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, is a survival thriller about a young girl trying to survive the night against a vicious quartet of her abductors. Bhat was recently in the news when his upcoming film, Kill, backed by Dharma Productions, had been creating waves in its festival run circuit, making a name as a brutal action thriller set aboard a train. While Kill might take some time to reach Indian theatres (or OTT, who knows these days), we do get a taste of Bhat's love for gritty thrillers as Apurva lands on Disney+ Hotstar. (Some SPOILERS ahead...) Apurva: Tara Sutaria Underwent Radical Makeover, Refused to Take Shower for Her Character in Movie (View Pics).

The Ranga gang, consisting of Jugnu (Rajpal Yadav), Sukha (Abhishek Banerjee), Balli (Sumit Gulati), and Chotta (Aaditya Gupta), is a brutal dacoit gang that carries out highway robberies and murders in the Chambal region of UP. While on their way to their next stakeout, the gang ambushes a tourist bus that refuses to give them a pass, and Jugnu brutally kills the driver and the helper.

Unfortunate Apurva (Tara Sutaria) is one of the passengers on the bus, on the way to Agra to surprise her fiance Siddharth (Dhariya Karwa) on his birthday. Sukha takes a fancy to her and kidnaps her from the bus. The gang plans to sexually assault her, but Apurva escapes from their clutches and tries to turn the tables on them.

Watch the Trailer of Apurva:

I love how Bhat begins Apurva by giving us a taste of the despicability of the villainous quad. They are instantly shown as irredeemable and unlikeable, depicted gleefully in the way they kick their victims or shoot them without remorse. The first characters worth comparing them to that came to my mind were the 'droogs' from Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange - a group of delinquents who operate purely on a malicious whim and seek pleasure from the pain of others.

The Ranga gang, at least in the film's first act, comes across scarier - they aren't bound by the fictional confines of a sci-fi setting, and we know such people do exist around us. It was great to see Rajpal Yadav return to playing an effective antagonist after his career-making turn in Ram Gopal Varma's Jungle. Abhishek Banerjee never disappoints, whether it is about making us laugh or be petrified of him. Sumit Gulati is a pro by now at making unlikeable a-holes, while Aaditya Gupta is quite a find.

It is also interesting how the film sets up them kidnapping Apurva, right from stopping that bus she is on to abducting her from there because Sukha gets slighted by Siddharth's phone call, purely because of their prickly male egos. It is hard not to draw parallels to Ramayana here, where Sita's abduction also stems not out of a matter of lust but of injured egos. Apurva, however, doesn't have an entire monkey army to come to her rescue; all she has are her guts and grit.

Here's where Apurva drops the first spanner into its till-now engaging pace. The movie gets into flashback mode detailing how Apurva meets Siddarth and how their love blossoms, with the intention of fleshing out the protagonist. It wasn't needed. The telephonic conversations Apurva had previously with her friend and then with Siddharth while on the bus were enough for us to understand her clearly, and her terrible plight incited by the kidnapping was enough for us to sympathise with her. The flashback sequence simply derails the momentum there.

Fortunately, Apurva regains it back when the quartet brings Apurva to an isolated and abandoned hamlet with the intention of assaulting her. The sequence within the empty train track felt nauseous, though the film stops itself from getting us into more discomfort, though I couldn't help but wonder if it was playing safe here. Still, the film manages to keep you uneasy and on the edge of the seat, and when Apurva manages to get away from that spot, I felt glad it happened. Apurva: Tara Sutaria Calls Her Role 'Powerful and Strong'; Actress Shares BTS Pics From the Sets of Her Upcoming Film.

The feeling, however, didn't last much longer. In trying to make her turn tables against her abductors, Apurva opts for a very predictable approach that lacks enough thrills. At no moment from thereon did I feel that the protagonist is in a situation that deserves my concern, which brings me to my earlier feeling that the film is taking a safe approach with the setting. There are occasional moments that felt smart, like Apurva marking a trail so that she can trap one of her abductors, but there were also moments where I wish the movie didn't need to show it all.

There is brutality conveyed in the violence, but it is implied and the film refuses to show the gore. Apurva is edgy in that sense -  the sound design works when the characters go smashing body parts with buckets and guns - but it could have been edgier.

There were also some needless detours Apurva takes at this point, like adding a secondary victim, an unfortunate astrologer who happens to stumble upon the gang's hideout. The film goes on to then establish the person as having a connection with both Apurva and Siddharth, which felt like convenience taken for granted by the writing just to add a couple more seconds of needless tension. Even Siddharth's attempts to seek out Apurva is a track of weak writing - I am still clueless as to how he managed to seek out the exact location, and his presence doesn't really add much to the plot.

Convenience writing continues in the climax too, where Apurva faces one of her captors on a railway track as a train approaches. The arriving train become the tense factor in the scene, though I couldn't help but think it could have been easily negated if the villain simply steps to the side of the track. There is also this added plot-element about him not knowing her name and calling her 'Pinky', thus giving Apurva her 'I am Iron Man' moment. But wasn't her name already revealed to him during his telephonic call with Siddharth on the bus?

Coming to Apurva's strong heroine, well, I could say this is Tara Sutaria's career-best performance. In isolation, it is hardly a mind-blowing one; there are several scenes where I felt she was phoning it in. However, when you have a career where you are stuck in thankless roles in movies like Student of the Year 2, Heropanti 2, and Ek Villain Returns, Apurva feels like a breath of fresh air seeing the actress in a more character-focused role. A couple of performances like this with an upward trend, and Tara could redeem herself as an actress.

Final Thoughts

Apurva unfolds as a partially gripping thriller, chronicling the confrontation between a group of ruthless villains and a heroine moulded by resilience and survival instincts. The performances are commendable, with Tara's portrayal likely to astonish many. However, it's undeniable that the film loses much of its momentum precisely when the protagonist should rise above her assailants. The narrative opts for a predictable route, eroding the necessary tension in these crucial segments. Apurva is currently available for streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 15, 2023 09:06 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).