Dr Khusi Pattanayak
Ian Fleming’s first bond novel Casino Royale came out in print in april, 1953. 7 decades later, in the april of 2023, indian audience experience a spy-comedy, Mrs.Undercover (hindi language), with a married indian lady as the protagonist; a rarely explored topic with a massive potentiality.
But unfortunately, Mrs. Undercover is a lost opportunity ruined by a clumsy screenplay and clueless direction. The films is one of those rare scripts where the audience is provided with more information about a whodunit puzzle than the characters who are trying to solve it. 15 minutes into the movie, we already know who the killer is, we know the task that needs to be accomplished- nab the killer, we know which undercover agent will do it (we have seen the trailer and poster) – Durga aka Mrs. Undercover (Radhika Apte); and yet nothing happens!
I have no clue why director and co-writer Anushree Mehta felt the need to trust so much on her audiences’ grey matters and so little on the investigative officers she was presenting onscreen. or why did she take so long to get to the actual point.
I was both glad and concerned when the serial killer Sumeet Vyas, was exposed in the very first scene of the movie. Glad because serial killers always add an interesting dimension to the narrative, especially in a script that has undercover agents. concerned because you (as an audience) already know who-did-it, what if the filmmakers don’t provide you with a meaty-enough motive? That would be disappointing.
And boy, by the end of 107 minutes I indeed was disappointed. A precious amount of screen time is spent giving us unsubstantiated information about this serial killer on loose in kolkata – part of an international misogynist organisation, indian agent of the international organisation, has done similar crimes in other parts of the country, he and the organisation both identify themselves as ‘common-man’, etc. I say unsubstantiated because at no point of time did the script try to provide any evidence to support such claims.
Since identifying the serial killer was not enough of a task, the scriptwriters decided to make the special task force find an undercover field agent (one who exists but is off the record) to capture the killer, because the serial killer has killed all the available field agents!!
As if unearthing both the criminal and the hero (heroine, in this case) was not exhausting enough, we have a whole lot of other subplots to deal with: old age Biswajit Chakraborty, completely wasted as a caricature of a senior citizen), mental health concerns Laboni Sarkar’s character suffers from a medical condition that leads to forgetting), double agent, plot to assassin chief minister, apathy towards undercover agents and what not.
The film does not let you forget even for a second that at its very core it is about women- their right to live a life of their choice; how they suffer under patriarchal rules; their ability to excel when provided with right opportunity and scope; how women across the globe are victims of misogyny – a lady from bangladesh mentions how she was married off as a teenager.
But this movie is no Kahaani, or Mr & Mrs Iyer or Darlings, or Thappad or Pink. That is why the entire feminist agenda feels like a lip service that has been forced into the script because it is a movie by a woman with a female protagonist. Even though there are numerous scenes that constantly underline the marginalised position women hold in our society they are neither insightful nor organic to the script.
The filmmakers conveniently forget that making a married female protagonist wear a super-hero suit with sankha-pola does not make her a symbol of empowerment or forcing characters mumble the term “housewife” as many times as possible does not make for a feminist script.
Mrs. Undercover is filled with numerous ridiculous moments (special task force chief called ‘Rangeela’, undercover agent practising gun at fairs) nothing that engages the nonsense or amuses the sense.
By the end of it all, I was with the serial killer who questioned the government agencies for arresting him based on some trivial circumstantial evidence. Figuring out the mess they were in, the power structure decided to go Bobby Deol way (no FIR, no arrest, no talk … faisla on the spot) and handed the misogynist to the women folk to kill him to death.
Nope. not my kind of logical ending with too many loose ends; for example, what made the serial killer a male chauvinist. Also, i am no expert on the subject, but isn’t a recruit agent supposed to earn a salary? So how did Durga draw a salary? Or did she not for an entire decade? And will she be paid for this mission?
The movie promises a part 2, maybe they will answer all the questions then…in the meanwhile you can watch Mrs. Undercover on Zee5.
(Author is an internationally published writer & corporate communication specialist. Views are personal)
