There’s been ample talk of crude language and graphic violence on streaming platforms lately. As a Quentin Tarantino and Lars Von Trier acolyte, I firmly turn a deaf ear to the moral police, but where even I draw the line is something like Apurva, Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s blood-soaked Chambal Western.
This is a film where shooting a bus driver’s assistant isn’t enough. The dacoit must clobber the poor guy’s head against a milestone almost entirely through the time the rest of his gang rob the passengers and abduct a young woman (dragging her through the aisle and singeing her with cigarette ends for good measure).
This is a film, Apurva where the indulgent screenplay engineers a diversion to have one of the victims of a highway robbery try running away, after which you run the poor wretch over with the shiny new SUV he happened to be driving moments ago.
A positively cherubic Tara Sutaria plays the titular twenty-something on a bus journey to meet her banker fiancé (Dhairya Karwa) in another city on his birthday. In a flashback, we’re told that she has tried learning to drive and is feisty because she can tell off the instructor — so you don’t ask useless questions later when she puts both of these skills to good use in the film.
I mean, far be it from a group of lecherous criminals to feast upon the average nubile young woman, but suddenly, the up-and-coming dacoity outfit’s priorities go from robbing a truck carrying polyester worth ₹35 lahks to taking turns to violate their latest victim. And where does it all start? When Apurva’s righteous fiancé threatens the alpha brigand of the group over the phone
