Remember the Drishyam dialogue that birthed many memes – Kya hua 2 October ko? Ajay Devgn goes to Panjim to attend the satsang and on 3 October he returns. In Raid, Ajay Devgn leaves with his fellow IT officials on 9 October, 1981, to conduct a raid on a corrupt politician and the drama continues till 12 October!
Said to be based on real-life IT raids conducted by the Income Tax Department in the 1980s, Raid has a simple premise — an uber honest officer taking on a black-money-hoarding neta. It is because of this single-tone thread that it, at times, seems like a short film stretched to a feature length.
With little subtlety and no sub-plot, we plunge headlong into the proceedings helmed by Raj Kumar Gupta. Amay Patnaik (Ajay Devgn) is incorruptible and out of the 128 minutes total runtime, 30 minutes are spent establishing his unsullied credentials. He mouths dialogues like “main wahi peeta hoon jo khareed sakta hoon,” while taking his own drink at the party thrown by a businessman.
It is here that he first meets Touji — the feared and revered zamindaar, a Baahubali and three-time MLA. There is some muscle flexing about honesty and "baimaani", a few weighty and very filmy dialogues bellowed, and soon the build up to the “raid” starts. Touji stays in a grand palace called the “White House,” and Devgn in his crisp black shirt and aviators forges ahead with his department members.
To be fair, the “raid” proceedings are most engaging. Ajay Devgn’s brooding sanskaari self and Saurabh Shukla’s languid villainy pep up the narrative and the film peaks. The vengeful relatives causing problems, the many nook and crevices where the supposed “kaala dhan” should be hidden being explored with great frenzy, and some of the government officials slightly vary of the consequences of trying to take on the rich and mighty give us interesting moments.
It’s also here that humour gets woven in, thanks to Amit Sial’s reluctant government official act and 85-year-old firebrand actor Pushpa Joshi who never utters a dull word as Saurabh Shukla’s on-screen mother!
But it’s the pre and post-“raid” happenings that are flat and tepid.
The film and its principle actors have a single point agenda – to wipe out corruption and kala dhan. The visuals of free falling gold biscuits and stacks of notes piled one on top of the other are satisfying to watch to an extent, but it takes some more craft and skill to make a truly engaging film.
There isn’t much to unravel or discover. Ajay Devgn is pitch perfect as the good guy. Ilyana D’Cruz, as his wife, is the epitome of bharatiya better-half who dutifully makes tiffin for her husband and waits for him with love in her eyes, while Saurabh Shukla is brilliant as the slimy scamster trying to salvage the situation and fathom the saboteur who gave the tip off to the IT Department.
With no real surprise awaiting us, even this 128-minutes-long film seems longer. But because of the absolute delight of watching Ajay Devgn and Saurabh Shukla, Raid, in spite of its thoroughly predictable trajectory, is great fun to watch — especially the actual raid sequence.
The denouement, however, seems a damp squib and the unnecessary songs puncture the momentum. Why would an upright officer suddenly day dream about his wife in the middle of a tense search operation with the song “sannu ik pal chain na aave” sprung at us out of nowhere? Nothing extraordinary but still a one-time watch because of the performances.
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