- Mardaani 3 sees Rani Mukerji return as the supercop Shivani Shivaji Roy
- Mardaani 3 released in theatres today
- Mardaani 3, backed by Yash Raj Productions, is directed by Abhiraj Minawala
A spitfire, Rani Mukerji meets her match in Mardaani 3 in the strikingly vivid form of Mallika Prasad, who slips into the garb of the first female antagonist of the franchise with effortless ease. The frequently electrifying on-screen face-offs between them bring the best out of both performers. In the bargain, the film acquires an edge that is infinitely sharper than that of the two previous films in the series.
Mardaani 3 isn't necessarily any different from all the crusading Singham-style cop movies that Bollywood produces, but it stands apart nonetheless, not just from the crowd but also from its two precursors because of the crackle and clarity of the tale.
The Aditya Chopra-produced, Abhiraj Minawala-directed thriller benefits appreciably from the intense duel between the characters portrayed by Mukerji and Prasad - two strong-willed women at opposite ends of the moral scale.
One threatens the other. The criminal has a free run of the field. The woman in uniform has rules that she must abide by. The latter is shackled by protocol. The former knows no bounds and can do as she pleases until she is confronted by a very determined law enforcer.
Mardaani 3 has a rock-solid first half that represents frills-free filmmaking at its very best. Well, almost. It is followed by another hour and a bit that is nearly just as good, making the film as flawless as a genre film can ever be in terms of both its writing and its crafting.
While the screenplay and dialogue by Aayush Gupta never deviate from the spirit of the film, Artur Zurawski's cinematography and Yasha Ranchandani's editing lend sheen and pace to the film respectively.
As much as it is a police procedural on the lines of Mardaani (in which the heroine took on human traffickers in Delhi) and Mardaani 2 (in which her foe was a young rapist and murderer in Kota), Mardaani 3 incorporates a medico-social angle that pitchforks it well beyond the scope of just encounters and investigations.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shivani Shivaji Roy's theatre of operations is once again Delhi and a few small towns around it. The area expectedly swarms with ruthless killers and kidnappers, keeping the officer and her team on their toes.
SSP Roy thinks on her feet and flits between the National Capital Region and Bulandshahr, Sikar, and Jaipur (often in the company of rookie cop Fatima Anwar, played by Janki Bodiwala) before heading out to Colombo for a climactic showdown.
It pits the crusading cop against a suave man - yes, Mardaani 3 has another villain - who is an embodiment of pure evil who swears by Amma (Mallika Prasad), a crime queen who stops at nothing.
The film opens with the kidnapping of two girls from a farmhouse in Bulandshahr. The victims are a VIP's daughter and the child of the caretaker. Cops rush in because there is pressure upon them to solve the case quickly. Turns out that the abduction of the girls is only the tip of a massive iceberg.
Nearly 100 minor girls have gone missing in a span of three months from in and around Delhi. A large percentage of them are street children from impoverished families.
The irrepressible SSP is ordered to swing into action. She runs to run into devilish criminals who operate in the shadows in Delhi's underbelly and a sceptical boss who rarely gives her a free hand.
SSP Roy's investigation brings her face to face with Amma, whose writ runs over a ring of kidnappers whose motives are shrouded in mystery until the final quarter of the film, when the sheer global scale of the crime becomes apparent.
The screenwriter gives the director and the actors solid chunks of narrative meat to work with as they wend their way through situations that have the power to surprise and excite the audience as well as challenge the performers on the screen.
Rani Mukerji and Mallika Prasad grab every opportunity with both hands and lift Mardaani 3 above the humdrum. The film, and especially their confrontations in different settings (including the police officer's home), hit home with great force.
In essence, Mardaani 3 is an old-school good-versus-evil drama that factors in the ills of a male-dominated society that spares no thought for, let alone does anything about, the safety and well-being of girls born in disadvantaged circumstances.
The film's social construct and mythic proportions (the analogy of a powerful goddess fighting a band of monsters is inevitably all-pervasive) serve as a bulwark that elevates the conventional cops-and-crooks tale.
Rani Mukerji, returning to the screen after 2023's Mrs Chatterjee vs. Norway, is at the top of her game. She delivers a power-packed, unblemished star turn that should rank among the finest of her 30-year-old acting career.
Although Mukerji has a bunch of action sequences that have been designed to project her as a fearless woman of action, Mallika Prasad has to make do with verbal jousts. She makes the most of them, matching the lead actress all the way through with the aid of her dialogue delivering and the piercing gaze of her kohl-lined eyes..
Although the battle lines, and daggers, between the two key characters are drawn pretty unambiguously early in the film, there is enough in the plot that keeps the audience guessing.
It is in the smaller details of SSP Roy's war on the mafia and her often self-defeating negotiations with the higher-ups in the police force and in the government that distinguishes Mardaani 3 from average Bollywood girls-in-distress tales.
By the time Mardaani 3 winds up, it provides a major hint that this is not the end of the road for supercop Shivani Shivaji Roy. Is there, then, another installment on the horizon? We wouldn't mind one if it were half as taut and riveting as this.