Movie: The White Tiger
The White Tiger Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vijay Maurya, Nalneesh Neel, Swaroop Sampat
The White Tiger Director: Ramin Bahrani
Streaming On: Netflix Also Read - Priyanka Chopra on facing racism as a student in the US: At that time, I took it very personally
Slumdog Millionaire did it back in 2008 and ever since, there has been a steady boom of Hollywood interest in India, especially in the depiction of the country's underbelly, be it to do with societal, cultural, economical or criminal issues. Director Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Man Push Cart and 99 Homes)'s The White Tiger, adapted from Arvind Adiga's Booker-prize-winning novel of the same name, explores the glaring caste0based chasms that exist in the country through the eyes of a villager yearning to break free from his shackles, but does so in a somewhat uneven manner, and with no small amount of a lopsided perspective to boot. Also Read - The White Tiger: Priyanka Chopra and Rajkummar Rao discuss their favourite Hajmolas on a dinner date — watch video
Scroll down for my full The White Tiger review... Also Read - Priyanka Chopra on the 10-year-age gap between herself and Nick Jonas: It's more of an adventure than hurdle
What's it about
Netflix's The White Tiger revolves around Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav), who shoots an email to the Chinese Premiere visiting India in 2010 in an attempt to gain a meeting by boasting about his rags-to-riches entrepreneurial story. Through a series of flashbacks, we get to see his drive leading him to graduate from servitude in his nondescript village to greater servitude in a larger city like Dhanbad under the eye of Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), Pinky (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas), The Mongoose (Vijay Maurya) and The Stork (Mahesh Manjrekar) — a drive that later leads to a singular ambition of breaking all servile bondages by any means necessary and join the new wave of India in an even bigger city.
Check out The White Tiger trailer here...
What's hot
What soothes over the many creases of The White Tiger is its acting, especially that by Adarsh Gourav who's a revelation in the eponymous role. Priyanka Chopra brings in all her years of versatile experience to lend him the strongest support despite having not more than an extended guest appearance, and then, both Vijay Maurya and Mahesh Manjrekar, play the boorish, entitled masters to the T. Parts of Ramin Bahrani's screenplay pertaining to the characterisation of each of them, and especially that of Rajkumar Rao's Ashok, too, hold your interest, particularly with how we get to see years of indoctrination via patriarchy and casteism trump his newly found America-returned outlook. Among other positives, Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans' background score does the job of setting the tone or changing the mood as and when needed.
What's not
While his script is by and large adequate, Ramin Bahrani's direction misses the mark at several key moments — the narrative arc goes up and down, the impetus majorly dips in the middle portion, particularly after Priyanka Chopra has nothing else to contribute to the plot, and most of all, there are several logical loopholes that are hard to brush past. For instance, you do wonder why and how the same set of drivers and their employers have set up near-permanent residence at the same 5-star hotel, how long does it take to bribe government bureaucrats (even in India) and why does PeeCee want to scratch Balram's back the first time they meet, among other glaring queries.
Another sore point is Rajkummar Rao's performance and accent, with the former barely passing muster (his drunken scene is a huge letdown, with the rookie Adarsh Gourav drinking circles around him) and his Americanized accent makes Priyanka sound like she was born and raised in the US. Paolo Carnera's camerawork, especially his lighting also fails to evoke the right atmosphere at several crucial junctures and Tim Streeto badly needed to sharpen his editing scissors. Most of all though, it's Ramin Bahrani's insistence that India is still a land where sewage disposal, running water, public transport and basic hygiene is missing across the country is what gets your goat even though the movie is based between 2007-2010 (a bit of research and a lack of stubbornness to not look beyond Arvind Adiga's book, which was no factual thesis itself, wouldn't have hurt).
BL Verdict
On the whole, The White Tiger is mostly a faithful adaptation of Arvind Adiga's novel, and by that yardstick, it neither transcends the drawbacks of its source material nor does it supersede its limitation, but it does manage to present am interesting look of what even the most loyal are capable of in today's India if they're pushed to the brink of antiquated bondage. I'm going with 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Rating :
2.5 out of 5
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