Raid Review: 5 Simple Fixes That Could Have Made Ajay Devgn-Saurabh Shukla's Period Thriller An Awesome Watch

Ajay Devgn's Raid could have been awesome; it had the potential and the firepower to be a landmark movie of its genre in Bollywood. At least, it could have been the best movie of the year. Raid has an interesting concept, a terrific villain in Saurabh Shukla's Rajaji, decent performances, some really engaging sequences and a short runtime. It had so many factors going on for it, especially in a time when the whole country is keeping a keen eye on all IT department's activities. Sadly, the movie falters just when things becomes interesting and doesn't so much to get itself out of the slump.

Raid, directed by Raj Kumar Gupta isn't a bad movie. Like we said before, it lays the foundation of delivering a brilliant movie, but instead remains happy in not exploring its own potential. Still there are enough moments in the movie that make it for a decent one time watch.

However, if the makers had applied the below five fixes to Raid. certainly the movie could have become a better watch than what we got instead. Needless to say, SPOILER ALERT!

Focus completely on the raid

The movie actually comes alive when Amey Patnaik (Ajay Devgn) and his team carries out the raid at Rajaji's house. Before that, the movie spends nearly 20 minutes in establishing Patnaik's honest and no-nonsense character, as well as giving a glimpse of his family life. There is nothing wrong in the idea, only these scenes are not very interesting and only add to the lag. Instead it would have been better to develop him as a character as the raid goes on, rather than dump exposition on him before.

Remove Ileana's track completely (and make it song-less)

Patnaik is our hero in the movie, and Bollywood movies always want to make these heroes a family man for the audience to connect with them. Here, nearly all the scenes with his wife, played by Ileana, only adds to the unwarranted fat, while also rising the need to insert two needless songs. Ileana is not a bad actress and she has two good dialogues in the movie too. But her track needed better writing or should have been completely excised from the movie. Same goes for the songs, especially the one that lands right during the climax.

Keep Rajaji in the house throughout and make his family more interesting

Raid is most interesting when Rajaji and Patnail play each other in a war of glares and words. And then for some really convenient reason, a rule-loving Patnaik allows Rajaji to leave the house during the raid as a challenge, so that he can seek help from his political friends to save him. This brings much slack to the proceedings, as Rajaji's disappointing excursion in the political circles (including a meet with the then PM late Indira Gandhi) wasn't as interesting as the scenes involving him during the raid.

His family, all as corrupt as their patriarch, was an interesting unit at the start. However, as Ajay Devgn's starpower got prominence, they were reduced to bumbling caricatures. They really should have given much more depth in their characterisation.

Underplay the secrecy surrounding the informant

One of the more interesting aspects of the movie was the mystery of the secret informant who told Patnaik about the hidden money at Rajaji's house. Later we find out someone from the Rajaji's family is, in Rajaji's own words, the Vibishana of the family. But when the suspense is finally played out, it wasn't much of a deal in the end as the suspect is easily guessable. While we understood why the person has betrayed Rajaji, we are doubtful if it will help him/her out in the long run. Moreover, the whole idea is given a Drishyam kind of treatment that isn't as effective when the curtain is lifted off the reveal.

Raise the stakes for the heroes

When the trailer came out, the scenes that caught my attention were the ones where Rajaji ordered his men to gherao the IT officers. This is there in the movie, but it comes too late in the climax and even then, isn't as much thrilling as the trailers suggested. Primarily, because the climax is given a Bollywood touch, with a song playing in the background that throws out nearly all the tension. Instead if the movie put the officers in real danger of torture, like one of the real-life incidents the credits tell us, it would have made for a hard-hitting tale.

Still, we would recommend you to watch Raid to know how IT officers do put their lives at risk when they cover such high profile raids, and also for Saurabh Shukla's wonderful performance.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 16, 2018 05:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).