A father searches for his kidnapped daughter. But along with this race-against-time thriller, we also get a psychological arc about a certain kind of man. It all comes together very well. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
The trailers have told us that Crazxy is about a father and his kidnapped daughter and ransom money. So when Abhimanyu (Sohum Shah), a top surgeon, walks out his fancy apartment with a bag, in a single shot that does not break his urgency, we think that this bag contains money. It does. But then, why does the kidnapper’s “I have your daughter” call come a little later? So what was the money in Abhimanyu’s bag for? And who was the man shouting at Abhimanyu, blaming him for the messy situation they were in? What is that situation? In a typical kidnap-thriller, the focus is on a loving father who is told that his darling daughter is kidnapped, and the story then tells us how the father finds the missing child and overpowers the villain. But Girish Kohli’s debut feature (he also wrote the film) is very different. It is a thriller, for sure. But it is also a character study told from a single point of view.
And that point of view is Abhimanyu’s, and almost the entire film is shot in and around the Range Rover he is in. The first time we see Abhimanyu’s face is on the rear window, when he closes the trunk. It’s a reflection. The face shows a man who is clearly in some kind of tension, but the cleverness of Sohum’s performance (and the writing) lies in the fact that the entire arc of the character is seen solely through this face. (And this is practically the only face we see on camera. The rest of the characters are seen on phone calls or in a photograph. There are no cutaways to any other location or any other people.) At first, Abhimanyu seems to think the kidnap call is a prank. He is separated from his wife. He is in a new relationship. But perhaps his only real interest is his own self, given that he disowned his daughter who has Down’s syndrome. He wanted a smart child, not a “stupid” one, as he puts it.
And that’s why, in the first half, Sohum rarely “emotes”. The only time we see a softer side of Abhimanyu is when he speaks to his new love. Without being told, we fill in the gaps: Maybe this woman, who looks sexy and beautiful on his phone, has made him feel young again. The thought of his ex fills him with anger and hate. But it’s a controlled performance, in the sense that his voice does more of the acting. His face, mostly, remains passive. Even when he gets the kidnapper’s call, Sohum doesn’t explode with anger or plead with the kidnapper. He plays it like it’s an irritation: a new and unnecessary problem in a day that is already not going too well. But when his ex doesn’t know where their daughter is, he begins to realise it’s not a prank and that he may know who the kidnapper is. Almost like a sign from heaven, bird droppings fall on his windshield. The day is about to turn to shit.
Now that Abhimanyu knows he has to save his daughter, the film begins to turn the screws on him and on us, bringing up one tense situation after another. At first, it’s the usual things, like traffic jams and roadblocks. It’s the fact that the bag of money meant for something else – something very important – may now have to go towards funding his daughter’s release. The opening shot is that of a book titled ‘Ethical Dilemma of Surgery’, whose cover is an image of coiled intestines. This visual is practically a summation of the film The coiled intestines make a comeback, and the story is about an ethical dilemma. It’s just that what’s being operated on is Abhimanyu’s psyche. The way a surgeon removes a faulty organ and replaces or repairs it, Abhimanyu’s way of thinking is sliced open and put back together to make him a better human being. Hopefully!
At 90-odd minutes, Crazxy is a tight film, with the Buddha on the dashboard an ironic counterpoint to Abhimanyu’s increasing loss of mental peace. There are only two minor issues I had with the movie. One: the use of songs, both old and new. These passages of music and lyrics sentimentalise certain scenes. When Abhimanyu is in a chakravyuh of sorts, surrounded by troubles from every possible side, we get this song from Inquilaab: Abhimanyu, chakravyuh mein phas gaya hai tu. It may fit the situation, but it’s too direct. The second issue is the ending, which I am still playing over in my mind. As a twist, and as what it implies about Abhimanyu’s future, it is a fantastic idea. But it’s such an out-of-the-box idea, and so elaborately mounted, that it takes a while to digest it.
But Sohum Shah and the director hold it all together with admirable conviction. They give us a psychological thriller as well as a physical, race-against-time thriller. And we also get a character study of a man who appears so removed from normal human connection that the numbers on his phone are saved under the function people perform in his life. His former wife is saved as “Ex”, his assistant is “Junior”, his lawyer is “Black Coat”, and so on. The high point is a magnificent set piece that, literally and figuratively, is about tightening the screws, when Abhimanyu has to change a punctured tyre and also has to deal with two major emergencies. The staging of the three-way action is top-notch. He keeps saying “Don’t panic” to someone on the phone, but he could almost be saying this to himself. At the end, we see that Crazxy is a kind of message movie, and that may be the smartest thing about it. This is a thriller that makes you think!
