Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped (2017) Movie Review

Movie Review: Trapped
Star Cast: Rajkummar Rao & Geetanjali Thappa
Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane
Written by Amit Joshi & Hardik Mehta
Music by Alokananda Dasgupta

Censor Certificate: UA & Runtime: 102.56 Minutes

Some of the better films in the last decade have been these isolated tales of a survivor in jeopardy. 127 Hours told the true story of Aron Ralston, swamping pinned protagonist with flashback fantasies and videocam confessions, Buried pulled it off leaving everyone dyspoeic for air, Wrecked took us out in the jungle and made us wonder about reality & hallucination, Symbol had the surreal-ity of El Topo and meta physicality of 2001 Space Odyssey. Finally Trapped takes place entirely in an apartment room, following Supreme tours & travels employee Shaurya, who finds himself trammeled with a switched off mobile, No electricity, No Water and food supply behind a metal door. Boom! You’ve got your premise, your central character and an objective: freedom. Its’s both a single location and solo survival tale, that has lot of ideas, but ultimately feels like it should have been a short film.

“Whatever your actions are; the universe reacts accordingly to them” – Karma siddantha in a nutshell. Using this theme our main protagonist was subjected to a darwinistic survival principle, so that he can prove he is the fittest, strongest to survive in a concrete jungle as a loner. Yes, he craves for love, he seeks attention, but he misses the point of living life to its fullest. He has strong religious beliefs and he doesn’t want to change that for anyone. Also, throughout the film his approach towards the girl and his approach towards life seems to have similar undertones. He very shyly approaches his lady love and ironically in a sweet sorrow ending, he longs for her. All this sits fit with karma siddhantha because you wish for something in your life, but in the end, you realize that you have grown strong without that, beyond that you also learn how to live within yourself accepting the limitations and also starts respecting others prospective. Think this way, Had he didn’t have to survive for 5 days in a claustrophobic environment, he wouldn’t have made friends with his greatest fear rattus rattus and understand it is important whatever the situation is, rather than helplessly looking for some hand, you go and find the way yourself.

The manner in which Vikramaditya Motwani unveils the sense of claustrophobia faced by the main protagonist over the course of time is good on paper, but when it comes to execution due to several repeated sequences, you tend to feel like the things are still. This kind of essence in his writing is genius, but in the direction skills he could have executed those particular sequences even better. Especially like; Main protagonist trying to contact for help (Throwing cardboards and shouting from the room, which are not anything new but popularized techniques from movies like Chhutir Ghonta [1980]), I get the point thats a natural reaction, but in a film you do expect the things to move at some pace as well. Motwani does show some brilliance, when handling hallucinations of the character but misses the main plot point connectivity with the protagonist. It feels like we are watching someone going through the situation from the rear window at a times we feel like watching a recording. His writing could have been better in giving some character moments like; When his tested how much he holds his values dear to his heart & how much does he love his girlfriend. Yes, there are moments he tried to evoke some laughter by exploring his character before the situation, but those come in very short doses giving you yearning for more such moments rather than him trying to eat a cockroach/drink his urine. His writing and direction skills had they been any close to his earlier work Udaan, one could have come out feeling triumph just like the character more on the cards of Shawshank Redemption. Rajkummar Rao once again proves that he is the most reliable actor and this is his best after Aligarh and Shahid. Cinematographer Siddharth Diwan puts more emphasis on creating claustrophobic effect with several vertigo shots, close ups, and succeeds in creating a distinctive tone for the film. For example, Take shots lie Rat close up, lighting the room during the fire and over the head wide angle shot while climbing down the grills.  Sound Design and Sound Mixing are nothing less than master strokes for the film. Music by Alokananda Dasgupta feels fresh with minimalistic use of instruments, he excels.

Survi Review: 2.5/5 (For Exceeding limitations)