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Join UsStar Cast: Arshad Warsi, Naseeruddin Shah, Sagarika Ghatge, Divya Dutta, Sharad Kelkar, Rumana Molla
Director: Aparnaa Singh
What’s Good: Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi give strong performances in spite of a failing script.
What’s Bad: The film has no takeaways. A serious issue is portrayed in an immature manner.
Loo Break: More needed in the second half.
Watch or Not?: You may skip Irada for a theater watch. The Eco-thriller has no solid message.
User Rating:
Ex-army man Parabjeet Walia (Naseeruddin Shah) is training his daughter Rhea for Air Force. While her training is on, Rhea is detected with Lung Cancer that’s in an advanced stage. Set in Punjab, that’s known as the Cancer belt of India, the film traces how reverse boring by industries is contaminating the water leading to one cancer case in each family.
Walia soon finds out that it is PPFPL, a company being led by Paddy Sharma (Sharad Kelkar), which is responsible for the toxic waste.
Also involved in this is the Cheif Minister of state (Divya Dutta) who is cunning and corrupted.
After a massive blast takes place at PPFPL, NIA officer Arjun Mishra (Arshad Warsi) is in charge on the case. On the look out for this mysterious bomb attacker, he comes across the harsh realities of corruption, politics and more.
Will Mishra put an end to PPFPL’s heinous crimes is what is left to see.
Irada Review: Script Analysis
Irada has a good thought behind it and it throws light on a grave issue that Punjab is plagued by. What it fails to do is to make a film that has a purpose to serve. After building a decently riveting first half, the film has no takeaways, comment or solution to the issue. It starts off well, of course slightly reminding you of Julia Roberts starrer Erin Brokovich which tackled a similar tale that unearths a company’s serious impact because of industrial waste. The problem here is that Irada’s characters are crated out of stereotypes. Especially Sharad Kelkar and Divya Dutta’s character are too caricaturish.
The dialogues are mostly dramatic and only Arshad Warsi gets the funny ones which form as a slight comic relief in the otherwise serious film.
Sagarika Ghatge’s character of a journalist is completely wasted. It starts off on an interesting note but is cut off from the main plot in the rest of the film.
Also, it is overall slightly a hurried process, where the clincher of the film is produced quite early on and hence post that you kind of already connect the dots.
Irada Review: Star Performance
Naseeruddin Shah is a veteran actor and he easily fits into any character with ease. Here, as a father who is ambitious in sending his daughter to the armed forces to later an emotionally wrecked parent, his transition is impressive.
Arshad Warsi as the NIA officer does a fabulous job. His act of a funny yet immensely clever officer is pulled off amazingly by him.
Sharad Kelkar as Paddy Sharma, the lead villain is too loud and quite stereotypical in the film.
Divya Dutta does a good job as the cunning politician. She completely kills it in one of the scenes where she is seen having a conversation with the NIA officer at the dinner table.
Sagarika Ghatge looks pretty but sadly does not match up to the rest of the cast when it comes to acting.
Rajesh Sharma as Jeethu, who is Paddy Sharma’s sidekick does a fairly good job.
Irada Review: Direction, Music
Aparnaa Singh and Nishant Tripathi’s Irada is a serious and riveting at start but soon loses its way. The film takes off well and the non-linear story telling does work in its favor but only to disappoint the audiences towards the second half.
Some scenes that do manage to create a great impact are the ‘cancer train’ sequence and also, the statistics that are shown towards the end startle you.
In other cases, the overall treatment is pretty much half baked. An entire song with Sagarika Ghatge’s character could have easily been chopped off from the film considering how her character loses its importance in the story further. It was completely unnecessary. The screenplay is weak too and hence we are left unsatisfied and confused at times.
The run time of the film has been kept short but that also makes it a hurried attempt and leaves the audience stone cold.
Irada Review: The Last Word
Irada fails to make the required impact. The film’s purpose is to create awareness but it does so in quite a haphazard manner. A 2/5 for this film.
Irada Trailer
Irada releases on 17th feb, 2017.
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