A Thursday review: Yami Gautam-starrer spiritual sequel to A Wednesday comes with lots of flaws

Yami Gautam-led A Thursday is a spiritual sequel to Neeraj Pandey’s 2008 sleeper hit A Wednesday!. Both Ronnie Screwvala productions feature a vigilante creating a hostage situation, trapping the police and the government at the highest levels, for a righteous cause which is revealed in the end.

The Disney+ Hotstar film stars Gautam as Naina, a playschool teacher in Mumbai who takes little kids hostage, demanding ₹5 crore, and a tête-à-tête with the Prime Minister, played by Dimple Kapadia. The cops on the case are Catherine Alvarez (Neha Dhupia) and her deputy Javed Khan (Atul Kulkarni). Catherine and Javed have a strange equation. It’s hard to tell who’s boss, when the screenplay by director Behzad Khambata and co-writer Ashley Lobo hands the heavily pregnant Catherine some rash strategies to tackle Naina, which gives Javed opportunities to lecture Naina about policing and motherhood.

A Wednesday! remains memorable for two solid lead performances by Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher. As vigilante and cop, their repartee was among the film’s highlights. The film also benefited from two lovely supporting performances by Aamir Bashir and Jimmy Sheirgill, one the level-headed cop and the other, the angry young man. The concept also felt novel.

An equally unique spin to the idea was seen in the South Korean movie The Terror Live. Its Hindi remake Dhamaka released in November last year was a far inferior film.

So, how does A Thursday fare?

It’s a serviceable vigilante movie whose plusses include the tense atmosphere supplied by the premise itself. The incessant rain adds to the morose proceedings.

What are its minuses? Several.

Gautam, whose character is clinically depressed, plays Naina like a horror movie villain, which is surely not her fault. This was how the writer-director imagined the character, as there are several moments of Gautam snarling and glaring at the camera, with fast zoom-ins and horror-movie music thrown in to really sell her as a crazy woman.

Kulkarni is overdramatic and hams all throughout the film, really making an effort to look the part: a tough, world-weary cop with cigarette dangling from his lips. In comparison, Dhupia is understated and does the best she can with her thankless role.

As for Kapadia, in a post-Modi India, such a naive Prime Minister who’s easily bullied by her advisers, the press, and some random vigilante into appearing weak in public is just hard to buy. The press can even get close to her and ask questions. I mean, hello, haven’t you learned anything from Narendra Modi?

The dialogue isn’t anything to write home about, which shouldn’t have been the case, given the man in charge is Vijay Maurya, who wrote the lovely Bambaiya Hindi lines for Gully Boy. But then, he also wrote Radhe.

Khambata, who previously directed the thriller Blank (2019), starring Sunny Deol and Dimple Kapadia’s son, has a knack for staging scenes well. There is a moment in the film where Naina has to fight off her only two adult hostages to get hold of her gun. It’s a somewhat imaginative sequence, in comparison to the rest of the film which unfolds in a routine fashion.

Also damaging the film’s prospects is some of the weak bits in the writing. For example, Naina is live-streaming her thoughts using her smartphone as the hostage situation plays out. Just before the cops are planning to charge in, they cut Naina’s connection to the internet and television. But she gets WiFi back using one of her hostage’s phones. Why not simply cut the internet connection in the entire area?

Also read: Neha Dhupia says A Thursday director changed film’s script for her: ‘Not like cops do not get pregnant’

And the film’s idea of the news media is just hilarious. This is a recurring foolishness with Hindi films. It is one thing to show all journalists are corrupt, TRP-hungry, incompetent. But at least, get the details right. That will only make your journalists look even better at being evil. For example, even hours after Naina launched her mission, and the entire country appears to be angry with her, the news channels are just busy moralising, going all how-could-she. Why haven’t they dug out her entire history and shamed her yet? How are reporters not harassing her parents, fiance, family members? It would take Twitter 30 minutes to find out about her and her extended family, going back to five-six generations.

In fact, even the police take hours to track down her relatives and find out about Naina’s past, which happens at least 90 minutes into the film. I mean, in a situation of national emergency like this, it is strange to think that the entire security apparatus can’t find a serious way to neutralise such a non-threat. Best is to just go back and rewatch A Wednesday!