Badla (2019 film)

Badla is a 2019 Indian Hindi language mystery thriller film directed by Sujoy Ghosh and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu. Amrita Singh, Tony Luke, Manav Kaul and Tanveer Ghani appear in supporting roles. The film is produced by Red Chillies Entertainment and Azure Entertainment and is an official adaptation of the 2017 Spanish film The Invisible Guest. The story follows an interview between a lawyer and a businesswoman, in which the latter insists that she is wrongfully framed for the murder of her lover.

The film was released on 8 March 2019, and it received positive reviews from critics. It has grossed over inr 1384900000 worldwide against a production budget of inr 100000000 to emerge as a commercial success.

Plot
Naina Sethi (Taapsee Pannu) is a young successful businesswoman with a perfect family. Naina's world turns topsy-turvy when she gets arrested for the murder of her secret lover Arjun (Tony Luke). Her lawyer Jimmy (Manav Kaul) hires prestigious defense attorney Badal Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) to defend her, and over the course of one late evening, they work together to find out what actually happened on that fateful day. Badal tells Naina that the prosecution has secured a witness whose testimony is damaging to her. Naina explains that she and Arjun were blackmailed by someone for their extramarital affair. They were called to a hotel room in a remote location and told to bring money. When they arrive, Naina received a text from Arjun's phone saying that the blackmailer is going to reveal the truth. She was suddenly attacked and passed out, only to find Arjun dead with the blackmail money scattered everywhere and the police knocking. Naina was arrested but is out on bail. The police find no trace of anyone else being present in the room or breaking in, and the key which would allow access through the windows has been taken out due to heavy snow.

Badal is suspicious that Naina is not being wholly honest with him. In order to prod more information from her, he questions her about a newspaper clipping describing the disappearance of a young man near the hotel, and asks whether Naina had anything to do with it. Naina reveals that she and Arjun were having a secret getaway in a cabin in the area, but Naina grew reluctant to continue the affair out of guilt. During the resulting argument, Naina loses control of the car she is driving and runs into an oncoming car. She and Arjun are fine, but the crash kills the driver of the other car, Sunny. Arjun convinces Naina not to inform the police, and they decide to flee but are thwarted by an approaching car. They manage to convince the driver that they had gotten into a minor crash and everything is fine. Once the driver leaves, they decide that they need to remove any trace of the crime, as there is now a witness. Naina dumps Sunny's car (with his corpse in the trunk) in a nearby swamp, which is indistinguishable from other swamps in the area.

Meanwhile, Rani and Nirmal, a local couple help with Arjun's car, which is having starting trouble. They invite Arjun to their home, where he finds out that they are the parents of Sunny. When Rani calls Sunny to find his whereabouts, the phone rings in Arjun's pocket as he had forgotten to dispose of it. He passes it off as if he was accidentally sitting on it, but Rani is unconvinced. Arjun and Naina reunite, but after learning about the search for Sunny on the news, become worried that their crime will be discovered and their lives ruined. Rani identifies Naina's vehicle, making her a suspect in Sunny's disappearance, but Naina has her lawyer falsify an alibi. Arjun uses his wife's bank connections to make it look like Sunny was stealing from the branch and was attempting to run away. The police buy into this story, but Rani refuses to believe that her son was a thief. She confronts Naina at a business event, reveals that she knows that Naina falsified her alibi, and implores her to help find her son's whereabouts. Naina refuses, and she is never contacted by Rani again. Some time later, Arjun and Naina are contacted by the blackmailer, who has Arjun throw away his phone prior to going to the hotel, and uses that phone to send the text that frames Naina.

Badal decides that Rani had a motive for killing Arjun and could have easily done so since Nirmal works at the hotel. He tells Naina that it is quite possible for Rani to have hidden in the room and received the key for the window, allowing a quick escape. His plan is to acquit Naina by pinning the crime on Rani. However, Naina, having gained trust in Badal, reveals that Sunny was alive in the trunk before she disposed off the car, but she let him drown all the same. Surprised by Naina's murderous and selfish actions, Badal proposes an alternate sequence of events in which Naina pressurized Arjun into hiding Sunny's disappearance. In this sequence of events, Arjun grows a guilty conscience to the point where he travels to the hotel to reveal the truth to Rani and Nirmal. He sends the text that Naina claims are from the blackmailer, prompting Naina to kill him. With the police knocking, Naina decides to injure herself and blame Rani for the crime. Naina refutes these events and claims that what Badal proposed earlier is the truth.

Given this story, Badal refuses to fight Naina's case. Naina implores him for help, which Badal agrees to provide if she will honestly tell him if she killed Arjun. Naina confesses to Arjun's murder, and Badal agrees to fight her case and reveals that there is no surprise witness. Badal then excuses himself in order to collect his thoughts. When Naina receives a call from Jimmy, she realizes that Badal's pen is interfering with the call. When the real Badal Gupta arrives outside her door, Naina takes apart Badal's pen to reveal a voice recorder that had recorded every word of their meeting. She realizes that she had actually been speaking with Nirmal, who had disguised himself as Badal. Rani calls the police and Nirmal quotes the Mahabharata, saying that Draupadi’s (Rani’s) revenge has been taken by Yudhishthira (Nirmal).

The movie ends with another famous quote from Mahabharata, said by Nirmal: "It's not always right to take revenge, but nor is it right to always forgive."

Cast

 * Amitabh Bachchan as Badal Gupta
 * Taapsee Pannu as Naina Sethi
 * Amrita Singh as Rani Kaur
 * Tony Luke as Arjun Joseph
 * Manav Kaul as Jimmy Punjabi (Naina's lawyer)
 * Tanveer Ghani as Nirmal "Nimbi" Singh Toor
 * Denzil Smith as Detective Sodhi
 * Antonio Aakeel as Sunny Singh Toor
 * Shome Makhija as Sunil Sethi
 * Elena Fernandes as Hotel Receptionist

Filming
The principal photography of the film began on 14 June 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Marketing and release
On 11 February 2019, Shah Rukh Khan, whose production house Red Chillies Entertainment is producing the film, tweeted two first look posters of the film, one with Bachchan's character and another with Pannu's.  The film was released on International Women's Day, 8 March 2019. The film was certified by British Board of Film Classification with runtime of 118 minutes.

On 12 February 2019, Red Chillies Entertainment posted the official trailer on YouTube. The trailer reached 252K views within 1 hour and has garnered 28 million views since the day of release.

Promotional Videos
Three unplugged innovative promotional videos which involved a conversation between Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan were launched on 3 March 2019, 6 March 2019 and 9 March 2019 respectively, which also featured Taapsee Pannu, to promote the film.

Dialogue Promos
Main Sach Hi Toh Bol Rahi Hoon was published on 25 February 2019, Homework on 28 February 2019, Sab Ka Sach Alag Alag Hota Hai on 1 March 2019 & Mere Paas Teen Sawaal Hain was published on 7 March 2019 on YouTube, featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu respectively.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has scored 54% based on 13 reviews with average rating of 6/10. Gaurang Chauhan reviewing for Times Now rates the film with three and half stars out of five and opines that Sujoy Ghosh has delivered yet another interesting, enticing and an edge of the seat mystery thriller. Rachit Gupta of The Times of India also rates the film with three and half stars out of five and finds that the film is a slick but predictable thriller with solid performances. He say, "Sujoy Ghosh’s Badla delivers solid thrills and some genuine twists with great effect." He feels that this whodunit film, keeps the viewer engaging and constantly guessing about the big reveal. Cinema200 too gave it three and half stars out of five and praised the climax alongwith Sujoy Ghosh's direction. Anupama Chopra of Film Companion gives two and half stars out of five with remarks, "Nothing is what it seems and there are many turns, but the film isn’t as clever as it thinks it is." and concludes the review as "Badla remains watchable until the end but it doesn’t become essential viewing." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV giving it three stars out of five, finds Amitabh Bachchan classy and Taapsee Pannu right on button in edgy thriller. Taran Adarsh gives the film three and half stars out of five and finds it captivating and star cast of film Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee and Amrita Singh brilliant. The film also marked the Hindi debut of the very talented Malayalam Actor Tony Luke. According to acclaimed Film Critic Anna M.M. Vetticad " The handsome model-turned Malayalam film Actor Tony Luke makes his Hindi Debut with Badla and delivers one of the most impressive performance of the lead trio. He brilliantly lends subtlety even to the most dramatic transformations of his character."

Box office
In its opening weekend Badla collected ₹27.38 crore from domestic market. The film had worldwide gross collection of ₹138.49 crore constituting of domestic gross of ₹103.88 crore and overseas gross of ₹34.61 crore.

Soundtrack
The music of the film is composed by Amaal Mallik, Anupam Roy and Clinton Cerejo while the lyrics are penned by Kumaar, A. M. Turaz, Siddhant Kaushal, Manoj Yadav, Anupam Roy and Jizzy. Amitabh Bachchan, inspired by Ranveer Singh's Gully Boy, rapped the song "Aukaat".