If wishes were movies, beggars would act. Or, if aspirations were power, wishers would win.
At a glance
film: Savi
Duration: 126 minutes
Director: Acting Dev
Mould: Divya Khosla, Anil Kapoor, Harshvardhan Rane
Shading: Chinmay Salaskar Music: Vishal Mishra, Javed-Mohsin, Piyush Shankar and Arkdeep Karmakar
IANS Rating: **1/2
Many of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars have become just that, their desires turning into opportunities to fulfill their wishes, all because they have the power (i.e. money!) to make a film with a member of their family.
I’m not angry at their success, but if you’re a viewer, it’s a blow to your mind. That’s all!
‘Savi’ Produced by Mukesh Bhatt, Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar under the banners of Special Films and T-Series Films, and as the promotional material indicates, it is a modern-day adaptation of the mythological story of Savitri and Satyavan.
Divya Khosla plays the lead character of Savi or Savitri Sachdeva. The film begins with a car driving fast on snow-covered mountain roads in Liverpool, UK at midnight. She stops, pulls out a man’s body, drags it around a corner, throws it over the railing and speeds away.
We are then told in flashback that Savi has a happy family with husband Nakul (Harshvardhan Rane) and son Adi. Their world is shattered when Nakul becomes the prime accused in a murder, that too of a construction company owner. The family is shattered when Nakul is caught by the detectives. Nakul insists that he is being framed and Savi also believes in his innocence.
Desperate and shocked, Saavi must act quickly and save her husband and family. Once in prison, Nakul is tortured by the inmates and risks losing his life if he does not comply with their unreasonable demand that he join them in drug smuggling.
A helpless Savi finds ways to help Nakul, no matter what. She then plans a prison escape to rescue him, taking the help of an ex-convict, Joydeep Paul (Anil Kapoor), who has written several books.
What follows next is a jailbreak thriller that shows the intricacies involved in judicial proceedings, the logistics involved in the day-to-day activities of the prison, and Savi’s constant struggle to understand her financial situation. She wonders how to increase her expenses to pay Paul and buy a gun to fight criminals. Her daring escape plan seems foolhardy, but it involves a risk she is willing to take at any cost.
Luckily, Paul joins her and is willing to help her execute her plan, and is always ready in elaborate disguises. Paul and Savi plan Nakul’s daring jailbreak, while the Liverpool police discover several clues from Savi’s house when she goes missing. It becomes a cat and mouse game as Savi relentlessly pursues her mission.
Hollywood has made many films based on similar stories – and not all of them are worth watching. Almost all, except for a film like ‘This Is Not Again’ Danger of SatanismEven in the climax, the criminals commit murder and escape. It is the uniformity of the plot and the escape routes for the innocents in most films that makes it look like a cut-and-paste job.
based on the next three days Written by Paul Haggis, the film Indianises the story and incorporates the myth of Savitri, who tries everything to save her husband and bring him back from the clutches of Yamraj. In the film, Savitri too tries everything to save her husband.
Divya Khosla is not an actress by any means.
She tries hard to capture Saavi’s mental and emotional turmoil, but only manages to capture his physical and financial stress to a certain extent. Kapoor’s role is one that he tries to give too much gravity to initially. In the first few scenes, he seems mysterious and dangerous. However, gradually he becomes what we have been seeing him as – Munna.
Chinmay Salaskar’s photography captures some beautiful locations, and there are some hummable songs by Vishal Mishra, Javed-Mohsin, Piyush Shankar and Arkadeep Karmakar.
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