Mardaani 3
Director: Abhiraj Minawala
Year: 2025
Duration: 129
minutes
Music: NR
Rating: 7.5
Rani Mukerji has
carved out a wonderful character as she approaches fifty years old. Most
Bollywood actress's at that age have either retired or are playing mothers
or aunties in movies. But Rani has the clout to go beyond that. Partly because
she was such a big star in the 1990s into the 2000's but also because of
family. The Mukerji family has been a huge presence in Bollywood going back
to the 1930s and then she married Aditya Chopra in 2014. The Chopra
family has dominated Bollywood for decades as producers and directors. After
years of playing the heroine in big splashy romances filled with musical
interludes, she decided to become an action star portraying Shivani Shivaji
Roy, a police superintendent in a patriarchal society in an even more patriarchal
institution. A female Dirty Harry.
She has to fight a deeply misogynist bureaucracy
as well as the criminals. These three films have a strong feminist bent to
them as she goes after rapists and traffickers. There is nothing soft about
these films, nothing gentle or optimistic, no romance or musical numbers.
Grim as hell. It is a buzzsaw to your senses. The underbelly of Indian society
ripped open like a rotting fish revealing the corruption, greed and cruelty
that we never see. The movie doesn't hold back on any of this.
It begins with a large group of women sitting
with sacks over their heads, their destination and fates being decided by
traffickers. The camera zeroes in on one woman and in the close-up you see
the green eyes. And you immediately know who it is. Her famous eyes that
have had a thousand close-ups. She is in secret communication with her back
up, but they are lost in the jungle. So she frees herself and kills them
all. No mercy. No hesitation. Just kills them. Suddenly, she is John Wick.
The film never slows down. It is on a mission. The daughter of an Ambassador
and her friend are kidnapped. She goes into the bowels of Hell to find them.
Where children are stolen and mutilated in order to make them better beggars.
When a child is brought in, they are given a choice. Lose an arm, leg or
eye. Having lived and traveled in India, I have seen the results of this
on the streets, breaking your heart and making you despair of humanity.
Heading the beggar crime organization is
Amma. As played by Mallika Prasad, she is one of the most despicable terrifying
villains on screen. She will make your skin crawl away and hide. A stolen
child herself for her kidney, she is a ball of malice. For some reason, she
is kidnapping girls between 9 and 12. Lots of them. But not for sex or as
servants; something worse. Shivani keeps investigating, breaking all the
rules, torturing prisoners, killing them in cold blood. Like all cinematic
cops, she is suspended and like those cops, she doesn't stop. She gets a
few honest men and one female cop (Janki Bodiwala) and goes for the kill.
There have been long gaps between the Mardaani movies - 2014, 2019, 2026
- but I hope we get a few more.
