Rating: Half a star, for the buffalo’s patience.

Cast: Om Puri, Annu Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra, Ravi Kishan, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Rahul Bagga, The Buffalo

Director: Vinod Kapri

Miss Tanakpur Hazir Ho tries very hard to say too many things, and fails at all of them. The only take-away for me is a realisation that three superb actors — Om Puri, Annu Kapoor and Sanjay Mishra — cannot save a bad movie. Bad direction, bad screenplay, very bad acting, at times even by these three. And all this goes on for two and a half hours. The concept of stretching time that is taught in film-making was experienced first hand by me at the empty movie hall.

The official synopsis on IMDB says, “Miss Tanakpur is a political satire that unfolds in the backdrop of a love-story set in a village of Haryana.” It is not a satire. In attempting to be satirical, it makes fun of rape as an act and the rape victim. And while they are at it, they also take cringeworthy chances at Khap Panchayat, patriarchy, corruption, police, judiciary. You name it, there is a ‘statement’ in there. Wonder why they forgot animal rights (!)

Sample this: At one point Ravi Kishan has a conversation on the phone about a rape victim being clothed or naked in context of a buffalo/woman – where the person on the other end of the line means a human rape victim, while Ravi Kishan answers about a buffalo in front of him being touted as raped. My funny bone cowered with fear and has gone into hiding after watching Miss Tanakpur..

The movie has been directed by journalist-turned-director Vinod Kapri, which apart from the official trailer was one of the reasons that drove me to review it. It is disheartening to see a journalist treating a subject, that could have been dealt with really well, in such a skewed, distant and distasteful way.

Everyone else in the movie is trying very hard to act, except the buffalo, Hrishitaa’s lover’s mother and the judge. Situational, cliched score in the background that makes you notice it exists. Like, in every scene! A score is meant to compliment the flow of the film, not hurt the ears. Haryanvi accent is forced. They also forgot to edit the movie, for at least an hour and a half can be easily done away with.

Atrocious. Intolerable. The ads during interval were better. In fact ABCD2 was a better watch than this. THAT is how scarring it was.