SHOOL

'THE camera hovers over a shrieking phone in the still of the night. And so Shool, directed by debutant E. Niwas, kicks off to a tense, disturbing start.
News has trickled in that a heavy-duty politician is about to be denied a ticket by his party. Trouble? Of course. Next: A murder is committed, in all its graphic detail, right before your boggled eyes. Violence and vice prevail in the madlands. Anyone who attempts to cross the path of the Hitler-like despot out there had better say his prayers. And fast. Now who can be the defiant one but a police officer who's more honest than Abe Lincoln? The much-transferred inspector, Samar Pratap Singh (Manoj Bajpai), is posted to a Bihar township, instantly whooshing into a cataclysmic conflict with the baddy-two-shoes Hitler called Bachu Yadav (Sayaji Shinde). Get the drift? A cleaner-than-a-whistle hero is about to do his I-won't-let-you-get-away-with-mega-crime number. If the same story has been told a hundred times over (most wallopingly yet in Zanjeer and Ardh Satya), that's all right. No point in going beyond the time and tested, you suppose. In fact, the undoing of Shool happens to be the plain fact that it doesn't go beyond what we already know and what we have quaked-'n-quacked through before at the movie halls. Perhaps the only one who doesn't know that a cop's daily beat can be quite a grotesque grind appears to be Inspector Singh, who is still surprised by the corruption that has struck at the roots of the police force. As idealistic as a Boy Scout, he sets out to clean the proverbial Augean stable, only to lose his child in a mithai shop slug-out with goons galore. The kid is fatally injured. More tragedy: the inspector's wife (Raveena Tandon), slighted by his somewhat careless and callous words, commits suicide. Meanwhile, Adolf Bachu goes right royal raspberries and bananas, even tossing a fearless journalist (with blue eyes, if you please) out of his car, besides creating mayhem in the Vidhan Sabha which seems to be the logical meeting point for the terribly awkward, gun-blasting, Inquilab-style climax. Hmmm, not much of novelty by way of a plot out here. Also, there's too much violence and some needless smarty-pants jokes about Titanic and Basic Instinct. Having said that, Niwas does succeed in keeping you riveted occasionally in the dilemma of the honest cop, thanks to several sensitively crafted scenes - like the inspector's outing with his family to an unaffordable restaurant and also the cop's emotionally stirring conversation with his wife on her death-bed. In addition, the strong-arm tactics that govern everyday life in Bihar are conveyed effectively. Shot on authentic locales in the state, the film has a palpably raw and realistic ambience for which Niwas and the entire team deserve full credit. All the players, major and minor, deliver rough-and-ready, lifelike performances, almost as if they had left their own personalities at home. Anurag Kashyap's pithy dialogue is another plus point.
On the worrisome side, though, the jazzy camera angles (particularly the topsy-turvy shot of the inspector at a traumatic juncture) and far too many weird images of trains chugging into a station are obtrusive. Otherwise, the cinematography is appropriately low-key. The music is nothing to sing or dance about, the navtanki UP-Bihar number obviously designed for the frontbenchers.
Of the cast, Raveena Tandon, shorn of glamour, isn't given much to do. But that outburst of hers is done competently. Ganesh Yadav, as a cop on the pay-roll of the political Fuhrer, is impressive.
Ultimately, it's the two central performances that are a class apart. Sayaji Shinde (seen earlier to advantage in Darmiyaan) is excellent, giving his scenes a mean, psychopathic edge. Undoubtedly, this actor is here to stay. Above all, the film belongs to Manoj Bajpai who gives so much rigour, conviction and basic honesty to his role, that his inspector Samar Pratap Singh becomes as believable as life itself. Here's a top-grade, searing performance that you are likely to remember for years. Indeed, he is Shool and the chief reason to recommend this yarn about cops-versus-creeps.