Costao Movie Review: Nawazuddin Siddiqui enlivens this meandering drama

An idealist goes against a strongman. The system forces him to bend, but he would rather break. His arrogance costs him his wife, kid and the stability of everyday life. I am, ofcourse, referring to the 1999 film Shool, starring Manoj Bajpayee as Samar Pratap Singh, an unyielding, steadfast cop, who suffers in pursuit of his ideals. Watching Costao brought back memories of Shool, which, in a way, is a more nihilistic precursor of the film. It also featured a blink-and-miss performance by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, as a waiter who serves Samar and his family in a restaurant. In a scene in Costao, Nawazuddin, now playing the lead, is out with his wife for dinner. It is an otherwise inconsequential scene but it feels like a milestone in a long journey. Of finally getting a seat on the table.

Director: Sejal Shah

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Priya Bapat, Kishore Kumar G and Hussain Dalal

Streamer: ZEE5

Nawaz plays the titular Costao, modelled after Tony da Costa Fernandes, a customs officer in Goa who got entangled in a murder trial in 1991 while trying to bust a gold-smuggling racket. During a raid, Nawaz’s Costao accidentally causes the death of the brother of a local strongman, D’Mello. The smuggling angle is sidelined, and soon Costao is only being tried for murder. The film shows a corrupt system’s wrath against an honest officer. As Costao is put in a bureaucratic chokehold, he still remains unbroken, unwilling to cut corners. He is socially shunned, and the case also distances him from his family. A classic tale of process being the punishment.

Nawaz seems to be in a picture deal with ZEE5. His previous works for the platform (Haddi, Rautu Ka Raaz) have mostly been middling. Costao is no different; however, it has a serene, calming quality. It’s a thriller which is more laidback than riveting (Rautu… had a similar telling). At the centre of Costao is a trial, but it isn’t a courtroom drama. The film is being told from the perspective of Costao’s young daughter, which gives it an intimate quality. The story becomes more internal. It doesn’t jump from revelation to revelation. It isn’t about the outcome of a case but about a journey of a family. It often sags, becoming mundane and predictable, but Nawazuddin shakes things up. In many sequences I could sense he was improvising in order to enliven a scene. Nawaz is a terrific actor who knows how to pull off a film, but Costao might not possess the gravitas and the enjoyable unpredictability the actor puts in his performance. Resultingly, many of Nawaz’s scenes have great reel fodder but operate in a different mood than that of the film.

Costao scores some points for not being a hagiography. There is an attempt at looking at Costao from a critical lens. What it lacks is momentum. The film starts off pacy but ultimately goes for a stroll. By its climax, Costao does feel like a journey, breezy yet bumpy, monotonous but often also meditative.