Agni review: Despite losing his grasp in the final half hour, Rahul Dholakia's Agni is a fitting tribute to heroic firefighters
Agni', co-written and directed by Rahul Dholakia, tells the story of firefighters who risk their lives every day to save strangers caught in fire, but who never receive the proper credit or gratitude from the government or the people they saved. The general public is even completely unaware about what exactly firefighters do.
The film's plot centres around the Mumbai fire station's chief, 'Vithalrao Surve' (Pratik Gandhi), who leads his crew from the front by putting his life in danger whenever they have to douse a burning building and rescue the people trapped within. His teammates include Avni Purohit (Saiyami Kher), Jazz Josepth (Udit Arora), Bittoo Chauhan (Nitin Dhongade), and others. Vitthalrao has a devoted & caring wife, Rukmini (Sai Tamhankar), and a son, Amar (Kabir Shah).
Though everyone on his team and his wife admires him for saving people's lives, his own son believes that his cop uncle, Samit (Divyenndu Sharma), who is a swaggering cop, is the true bravado because his actions are constantly mentioned in the media, rather than his own father: simply because the media never pays any attention to all of the heroic acts of firefighters. The occasional amusing banter between these firefighters helps to keep the film from becoming overly gloomy.
When we watch a 'decent 'whodunit drama' film, we usually find the first half, which is more focused on the emotional drama aspect, to be meandering and slow, and the film becomes even more engrossing when it moves into whodunit territory in the second half, but Rahul Dholakia's whodunit drama 'Agni' is the polar opposite of that. The first hour and a half of its two-hour runtime is very engrossing because it sheds light on the personal and professional lives of firefighters who have to put their lives in danger every day for a pittance salary and complete political apathy for firefighters who have died while saving strangers.
The film also raises some significant issues in the first one and a half hours of its runtime, including people's ignorance of fire safety regulations and basic civic sense, which makes it difficult for the fire department to arrive at any location on time, and corruption in the department responsible for enforcing fire regulations. However, the film loses its grip in the last half hour or so as it moves into 'whodunit' territory. Rahul Dholakia is unable to make the film nerve-wracking, even when the plot takes a dark turn with every new revelation. Additionally, the climax is rather predictable.
Nevertheless, 'Agni' is still a good 'one-time watch' movie, despite some of its shortcomings, and Rahul Dholakia deserves much of the credit for his outstanding directing abilities in the film's opening sequence and those harrowing fire and rescue scenes.
All artists have done their best to make their characters likeable and enable the audience to develop an emotional bond with them. The star of the acting department is undoubtedly Pratik Gandhi, who effectively conveys the mounting frustration of a man who doesn't even receive the respect he deserves from his own son, let alone from others. Additionally, the government's & police department's lack of assistance in identifying the true perpetrator of the numerous arson incidents feeds into his growing frustration. The rest of the cast especially, Saiyami Kher, Sai Tamhankar, Jitendra Joshi & Divyenndu Sharma have done really well in their respective roles.
Overall, despite losing its grip in the last half an hour, Agni is definitely a worthy tribute to brave firefighters.
Cast: Pratik Gandhi, Divyenndu, Saiyami Kher, Jitendra Joshi, Kabir Shah
Writers: Rahul Dholakia, Vijay Maurya
Director: Rahul Dholakia
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