Whenever we talk about 1983, the first image that comes into the mind of most Indians would be Kapil Dev lifting the World Cup at the balcony in Lords. As a matter of fact that has inspired quite a few film makers like Abrid Shine "1983" & Kabir Khan "83" to weave stories with cricket being the main central theme. Hence, when I heard about Atul Sabarwal's "Class of 83"; I presumed it must be about the game as well. However, it was a pleasant surprise that it was about the underworld & from the looks of it, it seemed pretty impressive. So will King Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment strike gold with Netflix the third time around after "Bard of Blood" & "Betaal" failed to rise up to the expectations???
Set in the early 1980s, the Cotton Mill Industry was barely managing to keep itself afloat as the nexus between the underworld and the politicians saw it as an opportunity to establish their real estate aspirations. Such an unholy relationship also existed between Maharashtra CM Manohar Patkar (Anup Soni) & the underworld don Kalsekar. However, Inspector Vijay Singh (Bobby Deol) was a constant thorn in their flesh, due to which he was removed from the field & asked to take up the position of Dean in the Police Training Academy at Nashik. Among his training cadets, there were quite a few who caught his eye & makde him wonder whether they could complete the job that he couldn't.
It's been quite a while since we had seen Atul Sabarwal don the director's cap with his previous venture being "Aurangzeb" in 2013 which featured our very own Prithviraj. His latest project is based on Abhijit Deshpande's script which was inspired from Hussain Zaidi's book 'The Class of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police'. Zaidi is a rather familiar name in the world of investigative journalism & quite a few of his books have already been made into movies like "Black Friday", "Shootout at Wadala", "Phantom" etc. So the combination of these individuals were expected to be a cracker as they are well versed with the topic of underworld. However, that wasn't how it panned out as it seemed like the makers were more concerned about having a short running time rather than properly flesh out the characters. The manner in which it is taken engages the audience be it the camaraderie, ego and even distrust between the friends; however as I said earlier, even though the subject seems engrossing we dont completely invest in it as it fleets by quickly.
On the technical side, it is top notch as the attention to detail & the palette chosen throughout is in sync with the period and the mood of the movie. Kudos to Mario Poljac for the exquisite frames &Viju Shah for the apt soundtrack. It's been quite a while since we have seen Bobby Deol in a meaningful role and he has done justice to it, though I felt the brooding was way too monotonous and it required someone bit more skillful to effectively emote. If you ask me, Kay Kay would have been an ideal choice as we already saw how natural he was in the Hotstar webseries " Special Ops". As for the rest of the cast, all the new comers has done a fine job along with Anup Soni, Joy Sengupta & Vishwajeet Pradhan.
Verdict: Technically it's made pretty well & even the subject has the content to engage the audience. But the over eagerness to wrap up the story, meant they didnt bother to give space for any of the characters to develop. In short, surely a one time watch but for the makers it was a missed opportunity as it had the potential for much more!!!
Rating: 2.75/5
Regards...Ben
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