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Bheed Movie Review : A brave portrayal of the plight of migrant workers during lockdown

• Times Of India

In-depth Analysis

Our overall critic’s rating is not an average of the sub scores below.

Bheed - Official Teaser

Bheed - Official Hindi Trailer

Users' Reviews

Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive . Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.

Bhargavi Murali 9253 333 days ago

Must watch for people living in illusion.

Shamili Vimal 4154 335 days ago

Vinod kumar singh gautam 67 345 days ago.

Good effort to sketch out the cruel and forgotten story of the migrant workers. The man made catastrophe led the whole nation bleeding......

Shyam Gupta 1 411 days ago

कुछ फिल्में और ऐसी बननी चाहिए, 2024 से पहले । मजदूरों की दुर्दशा पर सरकार का रूखापन लोग भूल गए हैं , चुनावी रैली में हजारों बस ट्रेन चलाने वाले ये बेईमान नेता मजदूरों के लिए कोई इंतजाम नही कर पाए ? विश्वगुरु बन कर भी क्या करोगे ? Up बिहार के मजदूरों की दुर्दशा खुद वही मजदूर भूल गए हैं ।ऐसी फिल्में याद दिलाती रहेंगी।

Jai 28251 411 days ago

Its a propaganda movie showing one side of the story. It doesn't show how Delhi govt drove out migrants overnight or why was the lockdown necessary.

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‘Bheed’: Review

By Namrata Joshi 2023-03-24T12:02:00+00:00

Anubhav Sinha’s black-and-white drama takes an unflinching look at India’s Covid-19 migration crisis

Source: Benaras Media Works

Director: Anubhav Sinha. India. 2023. 114minutes

There’s no denying the fact that Anubhav Sinha has been audacious in choosing to make a film on the critical issue of enforced mass migration of India’s working class—from big city workplaces back to their home towns and villages—during the first wave of Covid-19 in 2020. The sudden imposition of lockdown and border closures, ostensibly to contain the spread of virus, economic cutbacks, lack of jobs and wages and administrative apathy, had made it impossible for people to survive in the urban jungles; a horrifying reality worth documenting many times over in cinema. 

What  Bheed  might lack in depth and nuance, it makes up for with an underlying sense of urgency

Controversy erupted online in the wake of Bheed ’s first trailer, in which Sinha compared India’s class, caste and religious divides of Covid-19 with the Partition of 1947. Dialogue cuts imposed by the country’s Central Board of Film Certification — including the removal of a voiceover by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the lockdown — have diluted those comparisons, and resulted in some obviously jagged storytelling which can only provoke sympathy for Sinha over the loss of his original vision. Yet it remains to be seen whether even this truncated version may still be too discomforting for some viewers. The film’s performance won’t just determine Bollywood’s financial muscle but will also be a measure of the nation’s collective memory of its own recent past.

Bheed  – a Hindi word which translates to ‘crowd’ – is poised, a tad lumberingly, between the real and the fictional. On one hand it recreates some real-life incidents, straight from the news headlines, with very little creative imagination, ingenuity or nuance but a distinct sense of emotional manipulation. Such moments include the tragic deaths of tired workers sleeping by the railway tracks, while others are fumigated en masse against the virus near the state borders. 

On the other hand, there is a focus on a group of fictionalised characters and multiple narrative strands—not all of them evenly handled—that collide at a police checkpoint. The theme unifying all these subplots is that of the endemic social fault-lines, the multi-hued differences and divisions captured ironically through a black and white palette. 

A group of Hindu security guards and their families, led by Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), is suspicious of the Muslims, thinking of them as Covid super-spreaders. A well-heeled lady (Dia Mirza) in her fancy car jokes heartlessly about the presumed immunity of the poor. A bunch of cops, in charge of the post, are seemingly empowered by their uniforms, but still battling caste-based prejudices in their own lives. A young idealistic journalist Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) and her cynical photographer colleague (Karan Pandit) argue about the state of the nation while documenting the ongoing human exodus. 

The subplot involving the policemen captures the most attention, more so because of the persuasive ensemble of actors including Ashutosh Rana and Aditya Srivastav. Rajkummar Rao is particularly riveting as young cop Surya Kumar Singh who hides his surname and identity and is fighting the demons of the caste system — not just in the world outside but the anxieties entrenched deep within himself while trying to find poise and equanimity in his relationship with upper caste doctor Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar).

The film might kick off with a focus on the migrant workers, but their plight is better grounded in the background song ‘Hirail Ba’ than the film itself. The administrative apathy towards the dispossessed may not be openly critiqued, but is a perennial silent backdrop against which the action unfolds. In fact, the very absence of any form of State help becomes an unwitting comment, especially in ironic juxtaposition against a righteous remark about ‘Incredible India’. What  Bheed might lack in depth and nuance, it makes up for with an underlying sense of urgency and a righteous call for overhauling the justice system by handing it over to the poor and the powerless.

Production company: Benaras Media Works

International distribution: Reliance Media,  [email protected]

Producer: Anubhav Sinha

Screenplay: Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari, Sonali Jain

Cinematography: Soumik Mukherjee

Editor: Atanu Mukherjee

Production Design: Nikhil Kovale

Music: Anurag Saikia

Main cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur, Aditya Srivastav, Kritika Kamra, Dia Mirza, Sushil Pandey

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Bheed review – lockdown thriller cuts across India’s class conflict

A tense, state-of-the-nation drama set in Covid-era India successfully exposes how the caste system underpins much of the country’s division and strife

‘N o one ever plans for the poor,” says a young police officer in this tense, painful pandemic drama from India . Shot in black and white, it’s set at the start of the government-imposed lockdown in May 2020 that led to the exodus of 10 million migrant workers from India’s cities. The police officer has been put in charge of a rural roadblock to stop poor workers returning to their families and villages – preventing the spread of the virus. But realising that no help is arriving, the crowd, feeling hungry and abandoned, get angry. The results are explosive, exposing the fault lines of caste prejudice and class conflict.

The officer Surya (Rajkummar Rao), is himself from a lower-caste family, but he’s climbing the ladder; he is a competent, decent cop who refuses kickbacks or bribes (just what a modern police force needs). Still, his boss never lets him forget his place, and we see how Surya has internalised prejudice too. All of society turns up at his checkpoint. A rich upper-caste woman (Dia Mirza) waltzes over accompanied by her driver, fully expecting to sail through. A young woman who worked as a maid in the city risks her life to get her alcoholic father home to their village. There’s an elderly security guard travelling on a bus; then a film crew arrives from a TV news channel.

Taking a scalpel to the caste system, director Anubhav Sinha exposes how sub-castes and other divisions stamp out solidarity. Everyone at this checkpoint is blaming each other. A Hindu man rants at a Muslim man, accusing Muslims of spreading the virus. The situation is like a petrol spill – waiting for a match to be lit. Though when it happens, disappointingly, after so much complex, tough drama, it goes off with more of a fizzle than a bang.

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Bheed Review: Rajkummar Rao And Pankaj Kapur Deliver Outstanding Performances

Bheed review: the other cast members - notably ashutosh rana, bhumi pednekar, dia mirza and aditya srivastava - are no less effective..

Rajkummar Rao in a still from Bheed . (courtesy: YouTube )

Cast : Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Rating : Four stars (out of 5)

In Bheed , out in the theatres three years to the day after the first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown was announced, writer-director-producer Anubhav Sinha quotes Bob Marley and the Wailers' Buffalo Soldier to stress the importance of knowing "your history" and being conscious of "where you coming from".

In presenting a fictional account of the impact of the pandemic - and (especially) of the total nationwide lockdown - on migrant workers and daily wage earners left to fend for themselves, Bheed , filmed entirely in black and white, does indeed point to where we have come from and where we are headed as a nation riven by disparities.

The film expresses the agony of the voiceless and exudes compassion and empathy for people condemned to languish on the margins of a society that does not care enough. It uses the fallout of a sudden lockdown to ruminate on the privileges we take for granted and the inequities we choose to ignore.

The gutsy, multi-pronged narrative, peppered with allusions to the idea of India, with its strengths and failings, lays bare the fractures and fissures that undermine the essence of a diverse and complex nation enervated by deep schisms.

Bheed opens with a harrowing sequence of exhausted, faceless people - it isn't a crowd, only a small group - walking along a rail track. As they lie down to rest, the shrill wail of a train whistle pierces the silence of the night. The sound soon merges with the wails of humans, a disquieting pointer to what is to come.

Anurag Saikia's music score, which later uses the high-pitched sound of a shehnai - it resembles an unsettling howl - that turns a lovemaking scene involving an unmarried inter-case couple into an evocation of the unease of nervous defiance rather than into an avowal of all-conquering passion.

Bheed is a testament to a time when the nation's underclass was thrown into the deep end without so much as a bare-minimum contingency plan. The sorry spectacle that played out in our cities and on our highways exposed our collective indifference to people exploited, marginalised and conditioned to accept their precarious plight.

The film is a vivid chronicle of many divides - between the government and the governed, the law and the common man, the rich and the poor, the privileged and the downtrodden, the sensitive and the callous - that are aggravated no end when the nation is hit by a crisis of the magnitude of a pandemic.

Bheed is a hard-hitting film that, in addition to being an act of courage, is an urgent plea to the privileged to shed their habitual complacency. It shows how a calamity can batter a society where marginalisation of the weak and othering of minorities are the norm.

The screenplay, written by Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain, lays bare the fault lines in a stark, austere manner. The acuity of the visuals is accentuated by Soumik Mukherjee's restive but unobtrusive camerawork and Atanu Mukherjee's editing rhythms, diluted somewhat by censor board-imposed excisions.

Notwithstanding the deletions, Bheed makes its point forcefully enough. Not that a film can change the way a nation thinks, but Bheed does a commendable job of telling a story - in fact, a bunch of stories - that simply needed to be told.

Parts of Bheed may feel a touch simplistic because it inevitably has to interpret complex issues in basic and instantly tangible terms, but not for a moment does the film about desperate people scrambling to return to their villages as state borders are sealed and the police are ordered to stop them appear anything less than pertinent.

With the aid of a terrific ensemble cast that is in perfect sync with the purpose of the film, Sinha crafts a portrait of a world where the poor and the powerless, irrespective of their caste identities, are left to fend for themselves.

Caste and power structures are jumbled up with intent to pit a Brahmin watchman against a Dalit policeman. The former, a village priest's son, is watchman Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur). He is divested of his social capital.

The cop, a low-caste cop with an altered family name that conceals his identity, is Surya Kumar Singh. He is charged with imposing the will of the state on the men (and their families) who have hit the road without a clue about where it might lead.

Bheed is a follow-up to Sinha's Mulk and Article 15 in both thematic and creative terms. Like Mulk , it touches upon the subject of Islamophobia via a reference to the calumny heaped upon the Tablighi Jamaat during the pandemic. A group of Muslim men led by a bearded old man faces humiliation when he distributes food packets among stranded and starving migrants.

In the manner of Article 15 , it captures the repercussions of caste violence on the defenceless through the back story of the male lead, who has personally suffered atrocities. And like both the films, Bheed falls back on multiple stories drawn from news reportage to weave its narrative.

A deserted shopping mall, fittingly named Lotus Oasis, serves as a metaphor for a bubble that becomes the site of a final impasse between the police and a man who decides to take the law into his hands in his fight to ward off hunger.

It is around this mall that almost the entire film plays out. The police hurriedly place barricades on the road outside the edifice - it is totally out of sync with the environs - and buses and other vehicles are stopped in their tracks. Tensions mount, tempers rise and the animated negotiations that ensue go nowhere.

Circle Officer Subhash Yadav (Ashutosh Rana) makes Surya the in-charge of the police post bypassing a Thakur, Ram Singh (Aditya Shrivastava) - a move whose effects manifest themselves in varied ways. That isn't the only caste fissure that Surya has to negotiate - the girl he loves is Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), a medical intern sent to the spot with test kits and medicines.

A small-time politician's relative believes that he and his men are above the law and that the barricades are for the less privileged. A lady (Dia Mirza) is desperate to reach her daughter's hostel before her estranged husband can get there.

A young girl (Aditi Subedi), saddled with an alcoholic father (Omkar Das Manikpuri), struggles to find a way out. Amid the pandemonium, a television reporter Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) is hard-pressed to do her job flummoxed as she is at how things are panning out.

Promoted Listen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com

The actors merge with the film's physical space to absolute perfection and achieve phenomenal emotional depth. Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Kapur deliver outstanding performances that enhance the impact of the film. The other cast members - notably Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza and Aditya Srivastava - are no less effective.

One character, a cynical photojournalist, says: 'We are a sick society'. Bheed emphasises how that fear may not be baseless. It asserts that it isn't a virus alone that is to blame for what ails us. The malaise runs much deeper. Anubhav Sinha does not shy away from staring the rot in the face. Is there anything more exciting than a filmmaker who stands up to be counted?

Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra

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‘Bheed’ Is an Important, Powerful Film, But It’s Not the One We Were Promised

While the first trailer for the Anubhav Sinha-directed movie about lockdown in India was bold and political, the final cut is robbed of its courage

A poster for the Bollywood movie 'Bheed.'

Bheed   (‘Crowd’)

Cast : Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Dia Mirza, Kritika Kamra, Aditya Srivastava, Veerendra Saxena

Direction : Anubhav Sinha

Rating : **1/2

Showing in theaters

When the first trailer of  Bheed  dropped on social media around March 10th, it created a lot of buzz and disbelief. 

It began with a familiar voice — of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24th, 2020 — announcing a complete, 21-day, nationwide lockdown, giving India’s 140 crore citizens four hours’ notice to figure out their lives. 

With that one sentence — “ Aaj raat, 12 baje se, poore desh mein sampoorn lockdown hone jaa raha hai ”   — millions were rendered homeless, jobless, penniless. Without food, water, money and any assurance or assistance from the government, millions of people across cities and states started walking back to the villages they had come from.

The images that appeared on the screen along with the voiceover were of cops beating migrant workers. 

There was something very deliberately bold, powerful and triggering about the trailer. These were not just random images of the overnight loss of a nation’s humanity. Director Abhinav Sinha ring-fenced the human tragedy which unfolded in 2020 by showing what caused it. The context was real and the harrowing scenes were part of India’s collective nightmare.

The trailer shook something inside.

Two friends texted me to say that they wept while watching  Bheed ’s trailer, and both wondered whether the film will be allowed to release at all.  

Then, the second trailer dropped. And like it is in real life these days, it showed a human tragedy without pinning responsibility. 

While the earlier trailer belonged to a film about a very specific calamity triggered by a decision that had not been thought through by the government because it seemed to have no clue about the country they were governing,  Bheed ’s new trailer seemed to belong to a different film — one that was about the many general ills of India. In this one, mass exodus and state brutality featured as if it were a result of a natural calamity, with the focus on how people behaved on-ground and not on how a decision taken at the top had a chilling effect.

And so it is the case with the film, which released in theaters on Friday after several cuts and a U/A censor certificate. 

Anubhav Sinha’s  Bheed  is not a bad film. It’s a powerful, conscientious film that explores police brutality, class privilege, caste divide, religious mistrust, an apathetic state and its impact on the state machinery and the disempowered. 

But it’s a film that has been robbed of its political and constitutional courage. And it’s not the film we were first promised. 

Shot in black and white,  Bheed  is set at the checkpost of a small town called Tejpur and opens 13 days into the lockdown, with several headlines conveying the death, chaos and tragedy unfolding across the country: “16 die as train runs over tired migrants sleeping on tracks.”

In Tejpur, senior officer Yadavji (Ashutosh Rana) puts Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao) in charge of the main police chowki on the border. The orders are simple: No one is to be allowed in. 

After spending an evening with his medical-student girlfriend Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), Tikas, along with his colleague Singh saab (Aditya Srivastava) and others, takes charge.

The police chowki on a kachha road seems to be set in some dusty dystopia. Surrounded by a vast expanse of fields, there’s just a small chai stall nearby, and a mall with its shutters down.   

Several people who had set off for their homes begin arriving at the border. There are men, women, children, families in buses, trucks, tempos, cars, on cycles, and many with blistered feet, their chappals and will completely worn out. All are waiting to be allowed to cross the border and go home.

Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), a security guard who managed to hire a bus, is trying to take his extended family home, including his brother who has a high fever.

Also stuck at the border is a bus full of Muslims, a man related to an important, local politician and a woman (Dia Mirza) in an SUV, with her driver Kanaiya (Sushil Pandey) at the steering wheel. She is desperately trying to get to her daughter who is stranded at her hostel.

There’s also television reporter Vidhi Tripathi (Kritika Kamra) with cameraman Nasir Munir and a cynical photographer. 

The crowd keeps swelling, the long queue of people, buses and cars now extending beyond the horizon. 

At the checkpost, the task of the police is asked to just “manage” the situation. So there are announcements to wear masks, keep social distancing, and some basic testing of those with symptoms.

Posts on social media promise that the government is in a huddle and discussing what relief can be extended to the millions who are trying to get home. But the cops at the chowki haven’t received any fresh orders.

With no place to rest, no access to hospitals, food, water or bathrooms, but reports of Tablighi Jamaat spreading the virus, hostilities rise and desperation begins to turn into rage. 

After a somewhat jarring thriller type of twist,  Bheed  ends exactly as every man-made tragedy ends in India: With a hat-tip to the resilience of the poor. Their ability to survive is celebrated, and their suffering is ignored. 

This celebration of how quickly people in India move on, get on with their lives, this need to garland “sab changa si” status, means that no one is responsible and no one needs to be held accountable. 

To me, this felt like a dissatisfying, wasted opportunity. 

But that’s not Anubhav Sinha’s fault. His film has received at least 13 cuts, including the Prime Minister’s voiceover, and the comparison of the migration of migrant workers during lockdown to the 1947 Partition.

Given that,  Bheed  is an honest account of what happened when state borders were shut and is a brutal snapshot of an apathetic state and its machinery.

These days Anubhav Sinha takes up only difficult, contentious subjects and his style is often B-grade. Everything is loud, rousing, emotional and in-your-face. 

He let go of this in his film Thappad , but the rest of his films, especially Mulk and Article 15 , are strong B-grade films. There is immediate power in that approach, but little lasting impact.

He has shot  Bheed  in black and white, which gives the film an artsy touch. The film has some powerful, moving scenes and poignant lines, and these may stay with you, but the film as a whole won’t stay with you after you’ve left the cinema hall. 

Bheed focuses a lot on caste and caste-conflict. It shows how deep religious and caste prejudices run in India, how justice is just another stick of the powerful to beat the powerless with. There’s a point and purpose to this.

Written by Sinha Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain, Bheed wants to tell us that most of the men and women rendered homeless overnight were not just migrant workers, but people belonging to “lower” castes.

But the film assigns caste discrimination and the rage against it only to Rajkummar Rao’s character. In a rather interesting scene involving Tikas and Sharma, Bheed shows how much that can impact even the most intimate relations, though, ultimately, the film is not able to communicate its larger point very clearly.

But Rao, who carries Bheed on his shoulders, lifts the film with his very fine performance.

Ashutosh Rana is restrained and very good, Aditya Srivastava is quite fabulous, but Pankaj Kapur was a bit disappointing because of the way his role and lines were written.

But a bigger disappointment for me was Bhumi Pednekar, who seems to have settled into a routine where she is a moonh-phat ladki who calls a spade a spade and grabs her desire by the collar. We’ve seen this before, often, and it’s now beginning to flatline.

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Bheed movie review: Anubhav Sinha's lockdown tale is a difficult watch that hits you hard

Bheed movie review: rajkummar rao and bhumi pednekar headline anubhav sinha's latest social drama on the exodus of migrant workers during first lockdown..

‘Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar hi jaa rahe hain’. This line in Bheed said by a migrant worker just stayed with me. Narrating the horrific unfolding of events during the unprecedented mass migration amid the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed is brutally honest. High on shock value, it makes your heart ache seeing the hardships and humiliation that thousands of migrants went through during the pandemic. (Also read: All That Breathes review: This Oscar nominee from India is visually stunning doc on need to co-exist )

On March 24, 2020, when a nationwide lockdown was announced and state borders were closed to prevent the outbreak of the coronavirus, several migrants who had shifted to cities in search of work, were forced to go back to their native villages. Bheed is an account of what exactly these migrant families suffered.

Sinha has not only chosen a difficult story to tell but he ensures he makes it an equally difficult watch. Shot in stark black and white, Bheed doesn’t let you breathe. If anything, it chokes you, leaving a lump in your throat at several gut-wrenching scenes. Sinha shows no restrain when it comes to showing the pain and plight of these workers. The shocking visuals of migrants sleeping on the railway tracks and being run over by a train, families walking barefoot for miles with bleeding toenails and wounded soles, hungry kids crying and being thrashed by their helpless mums, a watchman trying to arrange food, people hiding in cement mixers, Muslims feeding their own and everyone around, but still being cornered and called names. Even though Sinha doesn’t resort to blood or gore in the shocking scenes, you still feel the impact of his story. Bheed highlights, and fights more inner demons and societal biases, than only the struggles of migrant workers who walked for days and nights wishing to reach their homes in times of crisis. Some did make it, while others did not.

Bheed talks to us through the story of Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao), a young cop who is made the incharge of the checkpost at one of the state borders that’s now closed. He is in love with Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar) who is a doctor and is currently taking care of symptomatic patients stuck at the check-post. There’s Singh saab (Aditya Shrivastava) who is Rao’s subordinate but clearly doesn’t want to obey orders. Among the migrants on the other side of the barricading, there’s Dia Mirza from the privileged class in her Fortuner, who doesn’t flinch an eyelid when the driver Kanaiya (Sushil Pandey) offers to bribe the cops to let them cross the border. Then, there’s Trivedi Babu (Pankaj Kapur) who only wants to save his ailing brother and help the fellow passengers in the bus get some food from the nearby closed mall. He insists he won’t steal but would pay for it. There’s also a young girl carrying her alcoholic father on a bicycle. Amid all this, Vidhi Tripathi (Kritika Kamra) as a TV journalist is covering all this from angles that she can see, or at times, through her cameraman Nasir Munir’s lens.

At 114 minutes, Bheed neither wastes time building the premise nor its core characters. I must credit the director here for so convincingly introducing each character to us without delving too much into their back stories yet telling enough. The story that Sinha has co-written Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain manages to keep you intrigued. It’s the writing, I feel, that’s a true winner. There are dialogues cleverly peppered with an underlined sarcasm that you can’t miss. ‘Hamara nyaay hamari aukaat se bohot bahar hai’ or ‘Gareeb aadmi ke liye kabhi intezaam nahi hota’ are some lines that hit you hard.

There’s a scene with Kritika Kamra draws an analogy with an overloaded straw-truck with that of society and the fear that it may end up getting scattered and turn into a divided crowd, is extremely well-written. Another well shot moment is when Kapur ridicules the healthcare staff dressed in PPE kits and calls them ‘nautanki’ while they are testing his brother for Covid symptoms. These all remind us of how actually millions of people behaved when first wave of Covid hit our shores.

However, some portions did appear excessive. For instance, I didn’t understand the context of ingesting a lovemaking scene between Rao and Pednekar. Yes, it was important to distinctly underline the class divide in their relationship, but there were ample strong scenes later in the film through which the point could be well conveyed. The sex scene was surely avoidable. Then, you sense the constant hammering on the caste bias in our society with Rao’s character being targeted by everyone. That, to me, appeared a bit too much. I wouldn’t say it takes away from the core focus on the pain of migrants, but it does bring a shift of emotions when Rao’s story takes precedence over the main issue. And why weren’t the cops wearing mask? I mean you preach only what you follow.

Story aside, some really nuanced performances additionally make Bheed a great watch. I won’t be exaggerating if I term is as one of the finest ensemble casting in recent times. Rao and Pednekar are in top form with their dialect, body language, confidence and the way they emote on screen. Their strength and vulnerability both touch you. Mirza looked flawless playing a flawed character of a rich woman whose patience is tested in trying times and she lets her circumstances dictate her choice of actions and words. Kapur is exceptional and wins you over with his brilliance in each frame. He displays calm while politely asking cops for an outcome of a political meeting about the opening of borders, and shows aggression when it comes to fighting for his own people. Rana and Shrivastava add gravitas to the narrative with some heavyweight dialogues, and their expressions. Kamra’s track started off as a narrator and had pivotal pieces to join initially, but eventually doesn’t get much scope to shine or leave an impact.

Overall, Bheed states the facts as is and doesn’t try to lace them with them anything fancy or unreal. A few cinematic liberties definitely would have been taken and understandably so, but never to an extent that it completely washes out the truth. Sinha keeps the tussle between the class, power, caste and religion on till the very last minute. And the end credits aptly sum up the migrant crisis and their unforgettable pain with Herail Ba. Watch it if you truly care to know the truth and what happened with those thousand of migrants who were rendered homeless due to the pandemic without any fault of theirs.

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Bheed Review: RajKummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar starrer is a riveting lockdown drama that depicts India’s class difference

Gretel Sequeira

• March 24, 2023

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Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the film Bheed was released in theatres on March 24. Read the review of the movie starring RajKummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, and Kritika Kamra.

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• Bheed Review: RajKummar Rao an ...

Film: Bheed

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Star cast: RajKummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana and Kritika Kamra.

Platform: Theatres

Bollywood Bubble ratings: 4 stars

Bheed Movie review

Over two years ago, in the blink of an eye, lots changed, for many families. After a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was announced, several struggled to make ends meet, travel back home and feed their families. While the world saw many dying due to the virus, India, in its rural and under developed regions, saw a much bigger problem. The death toll due to unforeseen reasons than the pandemic, was unnerving. With Bheed, Anubhav Sinha highlights the struggles of the common man and India’s class difference, in a way that has not been told yet.

During and in the post-pandemic era, we have come across several movies and series that depict the struggle of the common man during the lockdown. However, Anubhav Sinha takes the struggle a notch higher with his black and white movie. Despite the lack of colour, Bheed shines with the protagonist being the ‘Aam admi’ entirely, and the antagonist being the society. It brings forward India’s age-old class difference and sheds light on the adversities the common man faced during the lockdown, while many of us enjoyed our time in the comforts of our home, preparing delectable dishes.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by RajKummar Rao (@rajkummar_rao)

Bheed opens with Manoj Bajpayee’s narration. The first scene starts with a group of 16 workers walking (some barefoot) on railway tracks that is leading them towards home. After a long day, walking in the heat for hours, the workers rest and sleep on the railway tracks, for the night. In a shocking turn of events, an express train runs over them, causing the brutal death of 16, including women and children.

The perfection in the depiction of the opening scene leaves you enthralled and sets the seriousness of the situation, right away.

With the opening scene, Anubhav Sinha sets the pace of the film. And, the opening scene works well in getting you hooked. The plot of the movie starts to unfold with a scene where migrants are gathered in groups, at the Delhi state border, in the hope of crossing the state border and head home.

The film brings forward the stories of a duty in-charge (RajKummar Rao), who is fighting against casteism, despite being on a higher authority position, falling in love with a girl (Bhumi Pednekar), the doctor in-charge, a security guard, a purohit by caste, finding it difficult to understand how a lower caste can go up the ladder (Pankaj Kapur), a helpless mother (Dia Mirza), a officer who’s struggling to get his parents admitted due to COVID (Ashutosh Rana), a journalist (Kritika Kamra), and a girl who cycles her way home with her drunk father.

The plot of Bheed reminds you of the times when families struggled due to the partition. The times after they were forced to leave their homes and move to a new land to find shelter. The film’s plot revolves around the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown and highlights the major class difference in the country, communicating the struggles of the people to reach their respective homes and villages.

Star performances:

RajKummar Rao is Surya Kumar Singh Tikas, an officer in-charge, Bhumi Pednekar as a doctor in-charge and Dia Mirza as a helpless mother deliver a noteworthy performance. Pankaj Kapur, who makes an appearance as a security guard, seemingly does his best to lead his ‘gawwale’. He plays his character well and there is nothing to fault, with the veteran’s performance. Kritika Kamra plays a journalist in the film. And, Kamra put up a convincing act as an on-field reporter.

Sushil Pandey, who plays Dia Mirza’s driver in the film is hard to miss with his impactful performance. His performance adds depth to his loyal and humane character.

Throughout the movie, one can clearly understand how the filmmaker focuses on the ‘Bheed’ rather the stellar ensemble cast. He uses his stellar ensemble cast to help understand the class difference and struggle of the people.

Direction and Screenplay:

Anubhav Sinha, Soumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain do a great job when it comes to the plot of the film. A well-knitted plot and a proper execution of the screenplay makes the movie more real. What’s impressive is how the filmmaker adds depth to every character with hard-hitting dialogues. In terms of the music and background score, the rural songs help to express the emotions in the scenes.

Bheed solely focuses on the troubles that the lower class faced during the lockdown. With the movie, Anubhav Sinha brings forward that part of India you never knew about in news channels or the social media, during or after the lockdown. He treats you with jawbreaker scenes that manage to leave chills down your spine. Sinha makes it hard to spot flaws in this fiction turned reality.

Watch the trailer after the Bheed review :

Also Read: Rajkummar Rao & Bhumi Pednekar reunite for Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed, locks release date

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The toughest times people had to face just to reach their homes. The toughest times people had to face just to reach their homes. The toughest times people had to face just to reach their homes.

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Bheed movie review: A grim and necessary reminder of a recent tragedy

Bheed movie review: it is clear why it was tempting to use the analogy of the partition, which anubhav sinha had to excise from the film. with the context missing, this well-intentioned film becomes less than its powerful moving parts..

One of the most shattering sights of the Covid-19 pandemic was the flood of people suddenly rendered rudderless by the announcement of one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world — chief amongst those were daily wagers, and blue collar workers who would starve if they couldn’t go out to their jobs. With no public transport available, they began the long walk home, some carrying all their worldly goods in plastic sacks, with their children, or the elderly, in tow. That the trek under the relentless summer sun of 2020 was going to be long and arduous didn’t seem to deter the migrants. The refrain was common: if I have to die, I want to be where I belong.

Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Bheed’, shot in greyed-out B&W, is a grim and necessary reminder of this recent tragedy, which already seems like a throwback. It’s clearly a case of pushing back memories of difficult times so they do not overwhelm the present. It’s also got to do with the concerted white-washing that began in right earnest — to take culpability and responsibility away from the state — even while the pandemic was raging. And some of that, being force-fitted into the narrative, seems to have taken the sting out of Sinha’s recreation.

Starting your film with the mandatory ‘poori tarah kaalpnik hai’ (it is completely imaginary) may be a pragmatic necessity, but taking the specificity out by not using names defeats the purpose — in which ‘pradesh’ is ‘Tejpur’ (the place where most the proceedings take place)? The declaration of the pandemic in the PM’s voice is missing (it was in the original trailer, but is replaced by another in the new one) and instantly that moment, which changed the lives of so many of us so drastically, becomes anodyne.

The film begins with a striking shot of humans milling about on screen, desperate to find a way out, piled on top of buses, cycles, anything that moves. You can see why it was tempting to use the analogy of the Partition (which Sinha had to excise from the film; there are a few other bits which feel censored). With the context missing, this well-intentioned, lest-we-forget film becomes less than its powerful moving parts.

In many ways, ‘Bheed’ feels like a companion piece to ‘Article 15’, in which Sinha had raised the scourge of caste effectively, but was called out for doing it through the prism of an upper caste ‘hero’. In this one, he does a course correction by making the lower caste Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao) — who hides his origins under the honorific ‘Singh’ because that’s what his father did — the person who is ‘in-charge’. But how can a man like Tikas, buoyed by his cop uniform but living with a permanent fear of being found out, actually be in charge, surrounded by the Sharmas and Trivedis who fling the hierarchy of their birth in his face? When Rajkummar Rao, in a stand-out performance as Tikas, cries out, ‘hamein bhi hero banana hai’ , it sears.

It is his story which is the most interesting in this ensemble piece, which has a host of characters, all stuck at this barrier created by a lethal virus, and an even more lethal caste system, which overrides class. On one side are the high born, wealthy people like a mother (Dia Mirza) making a dash in her fancy SUV to pick up her daughter from her hostel before her husband gets there; a watchman called Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur) who is so full of bile and bigotry that he will not allow his hungry companions to eat the food served from a Muslim man (the Tablighi Jamaat being virus-spreaders is mentioned: remember how viral WhatsApp forwards and venomous TV anchors spread that rumour?); a TV reporter (Kritika Kamra) and her crew become the voice of the liberal, but misguided urbanites who don’t understand or care to parse the divisions on the ground; Tikas’s superior (Ashutosh Rana) who has great knowledge of minute social divisions ( ‘acchha tum Tikas ho,’ he tells Surya, ‘hum toh Somas samjhe thay’ ), but has little empathy for others not as privileged as him. The trouble with making people ‘types’, representative of their class/caste, is evident in the way they declaim, their self-serving statements coming off as dialogues rather than conversation.

There are some faces in the crowd that the camera stays on more than the others. A girl accompanying her alcoholic father home, emerging from a cement mixer, gets more time than the others. And then you move along, with the ‘bheed’ , as the people are pushed and shoved and showered by dehumanizing canons of disinfectant, their feet bleeding: the sight of that droplet of blood leaves you with that same angry, sick feeling as it did back then, when you saw that image in the newspaper.

What you are left with most vividly is Tikas and his love for a local doctor called Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), whose surname says it all. I wanted more of these two, and left the theatre wondering what happens to them when they do pick up the courage to go to her village, and confront her father. Will they be left alive, or will age-old prejudice kill them? Rajkummar Rao’s face, so full of the pain and injustice he has been forced to internalise all his life, finally acknowledges and embraces who he is: that face, in the generic ‘bheed’, becomes a despairing yet hopeful beacon for our times.

Bheed movie cast: Ashutosh Rana, Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Kapur, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Virendra Saxena, Kritika Kamra Bheed movie director: Anubhav Sinha Bheed movie rating: 2.5 stars

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Veteran Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty recently graced the reality television show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. During the programme, the thespian, while interacting with a heartbroken contestant, opened up about his own experience. Mithun revealed that during the early stages of his career when he was a struggling actor, he encountered heartbreak when the girl he was in love with left him.

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Bheed Movie Review: Rajkummar Rao's black-and-white film has all the colours of pain

Rajkummar rao's bheed is a lockdown thriller that follows the migrant workers trying to get back to their homes during the covid-19 pandemic. the film hits too close to home and brings back painful memories from covid days, says our review..

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• Bheed released in theatres on March 24.
• It stars Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in lead roles.
• The film is directed by Anubhav Sinha.

Cast & Crew

Anubhav Sinha Bheed

Rajkummar Rao

Release Date: 24 Mar, 2023

When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit India, people panicked, stocked up on ration and locked themselves at home. Some were with family while others were stuck alone in different cities. However, it was the migrant labourers who were left confused and stranded on the roads while trying to get back to their villages. And if there was someone who could translate those raw emotions on screen, it's Anubhav Sinha. In his film, Bheed, that released today, March 24, the filmmaker brilliantly made us recall the painful memories of the pandemic.

The migrants stranded on the roads, a mother's struggle to bring her daughter back from another city, a frontline doctor, a police, a politician, reporters bringing the sufferings of the migrants - Bheed has it all and yet it doesn't feel cramped or dramatic. Shot in black and white, the film is as raw as it can get, making your heart wrench several times.

‘Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar hi jaa rahe hain’. A migrant worker says this line in Bheed and that perfectly sums up the storyline of the film. Shot majorly on one single road, Bheed narrates the horrifying time faced by labourers who had left their villages to earn their livelihood in different cities. However, when the government-imposed Covid-19 lockdown was announced in the country in May 2020, it led to the exodus of about 10 million migrant workers. In Bheed, we have a police officer, played by Rajkummar Rao, who is put in charge of blocking roads to stop people returning to their villages, in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. The labourers are made to wait on the roads and surrounding fields without any food and water. A mother (Dia Mirza) is desperately waiting to cross the UP border to take her daughter back home. A young girl with a sick father on her bicycle finds ways to get back home.

The duty in-charge, Surya's (Rajkumar Rao) character, is written very well. While he tries to follow the law and order to his best, he is also divided by the casteism he faces every time. Bhumi Pednekar plays the role of a doctor and Surya's girlfriend. Even with Rajkummar leading the show, Anubhav manages not to shift the focus from the main issue. Pankaj Kapur belongs to the Pandit community in Bheed, and he plays a pivotal role.

Bheed is brutally honest that it will make your heart ache revisiting the hardships migrants went through during the pandemic. With a difficult story like this to tell, Anubhav Sinha made sure one gets uncomfortable watching it. Unlike mainstream Bollywood cinema, the filmmaker stayed away from the drama but kept the script restrained and tight. Nothing is politicised here, it's all about emotions.

"No one ever plans for the poor," says Rajkummar Rao, exposing the faulty lines of class conflict. Bheed takes a closer look at the social divide and class system in Indian society.

Three cheers to the cinematography team. Bheed shows shocking visuals of migrants sleeping on the railway tracks and being run over by a train, people walking barefoot with their bloody toenails, hungry kids crying and much more. Watch out for the scene where people are caught hiding in cement mixers. Even with no blood, Bheed is gory. Throughout the movie, no time is wasted in building up the story. Dialogues like ‘Hamara nyaay hamari aukaat se bohot bahar hai’ or ‘Gareeb aadmi ke liye kabhi intezaam nahi hota’ will keep you hooked.

There's a scene when Pankaj bashes a doctor wearing a PPE kit while treating his brother. He calls it 'nautanki' and even goes on to say 'sardi khasi hai bas, Covid thodi hai.' This reminds us of the time all of us reacted when Covid first hit India. Anubhav had taken even the smallest of details in mind.

Rajkummar Rao has given a brilliant performance as a police officer. He doesn't hold back and gives his best. Bhumi Pednekar does an equally good job. However, their sex scene didn't make sense and could have been done away with.

Bheed will choke you with tears and will leave a lump in your throat. The film will make you realise how privileged you were during the Covid-19 pandemic times. If you want to know the raw truth about those who were homeless during the Covid days, then Bheed can be your pick.

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Vijay Varma Reflects on One-Year Anniversary of Web Series ‘Dahaad’; says, “So grateful for this show that brought us so much love”

Vijay Varma's captivating performances, especially his portrayal of Anand Swarnakar in "Dahaad."

Vijay Varma's exquisite performances have the power to captivate audiences, leaving a lasting impression. One of the notable performances that has created a major impact was his  portrayal of Anand Swarnakar in the webseries "Dahaad."

The role of Anand Swarnakar was a grey shaded character and no wonder Vijay proved his worth with his nuanced performance which truly won the hearts of viewers and critics alike.

He spent months training by immersing himself into the character and ensured that every move and gesture as a serial killer felt genuine on screen.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Vijay Varma (@itsvijayvarma)

With all determination, Vijay's portrayal in Dahaad as Anand Swarnakar has made him win many accolades and awards. His performances stand as testament to his versatility making him one of the finest actors in the Indian Cinema.

The actor will be next in IC84- The Khandahar Hijack , Ul Jalool Ishq and Mirzapur 3.

Also Read : Vijay Varma celebrates winning award at Bollywood Hungama Style Icons 2024 with longtime driver Charanjeet: “We share the award and happiness that comes with it”

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