Spy film that turns gaze inwards

Nonika Singh

Espionage thrillers are not exactly celebrated director Vishal Bhardwaj’s forte. It’s not surprising then that ‘Khufiya’ is not your regular spy game. Even as the film is loosely based on the book ‘Escape to Nowhere’ by Amar Bhushan, Bhardwaj’s fascination for Shakespeare manifests itself in more ways than one. Why, the operation itself is named after the fabled Shakespearean character, Brutus. Et tu Brutus… who is the Brutus in the film is fairly evident at the very onset. Or so it seems. Other operations, too, take inspiration from literary names. Clearly, if Bhardwaj can’t resist the temptation to tip his hat to the bard, Sant Kabir and more, including the songs of 1970s, he also reunites with his favourite actress, Tabu.

Interestingly, a film about a male mole in the top Indian agency has strong female characters and we are not just talking about the lovely ladies, including Banglad-eshi actress Azmeri Haque Badhon. The elderly mother of the family under radar, etched remarkably well by Navnindra Behl, too, has an intriguing twist.

With Tabu in the film, you can only expect a woman of substance part. And she is superlative, like always. She is a woman of nerves, RAW agent Krishna Mehra, who runs spy operations with head and heart. She is also a mother who stands guilty of never making it on time for her son’s theatre performance. And then, she is an aggrieved one, grieving for her lover whom she describes poetically in the very first sequence. Clearly, she is more than the sum of her parts. In fact, the few scenes in which she is not present on the screen, you actually begin to miss her magnetic presence.

Then there’s Bhardwaj’s latest muse, Wamiqa Gabbi, whom we saw recently as and in ‘Charlie Chopra’. Don’t make the mistake of thinking she has only a miniscule part. You may presume, what can a loving wife of a spy, Ravi Mohan (a credible Ali Fazal), do in a film that is about the games ruthless agents play? But hold it, not only does the spirited and talented actor break into a delightful jig to the tune of ‘Yeh jawaani hai deewani’, her righteous character has a complete arc and she is in complete control.

Of course, how can there be an espionage thriller sans villains. Mercifully, here they don’t come in the usual Pakistani variant. But for a random mention of ISI, the country we love to bash in our cinema and otherwise figures only in the background. Instead, the focus is on Bangladesh. Jingoism is given a clear miss, even though our bad guy Ravi Mohan says out loud and clear: ‘I am a patriot.’

All the fine subtle touches as expected of a Vishal Bhardwaj film are there. If cinematography by Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi paints an aesthetic picture of varying hues, the background score by who else but Bhardwaj himself dips into the suspenseful mood of the film. And only Bhardwaj can incorporate a soulful song, ‘Mat aana’, sung by Rekha Bhardwaj, amid covert operations.

A twist here, a turn there, some of which often run the risk of becoming convenient conjectures and at times you think Bhardwaj is simply having fun. But hey, are we? For, aren’t espionage thrillers tension-fraught cat-and-mouse games to keep the adrenaline rush going? Yes, for the most part, the narrative set in 2004, going back and forth, keeps you invested. There are obvious holes in this mole story and you can’t help but wonder aloud: why can’t the agency nab the culprit once they know who he is? Yes, we get it, trying to catch the puppeteer through the puppet, but the reasoning is not convincing enough.

Despite 24×7 surveillance, the mole is allowed to escape. Not to nowhere, but to the US. The pace dips when the scene moves to America. As key players resurface there, things heat up and RAW finally manages to achieve what it had set out to.

The film is not really a faithful adaptation of the book, which despite the uncanny resemblance to reality was marketed as fictional. And you know, when fact meets fiction, it’s not just imagination that takes a flight but a lot more. The creativity of even gifted makers like Bhardwaj begins to find refuge in strange Karwa Chauth bits. Nevertheless, streaming on Netflix, ‘Khufiya’ is that rare spy film that turns the gaze inwards.