Shivaay review of RUDRA Edge of Darkness

RUDRA Edge of Darkness, The Review :

Story & Screenplay :

Almost a frame to frame remake of Luther. The tone is dark, unsettling and there’s hardly a ray of sunshine (almost literally!) to be seen. Director Rajesh Mapuskar has taken particular care of keeping the setting as grim as possible. The screenplay moves at his own gentle pace and makes sure the viewer gets a graphic visual of the extremely disgusting and psychotic crimes our protagonist has to deal with. His mental dilemmas, anger management issues and a estrange marriage only adds layers of complexity to his character. Someone kills because she wants her genius to be proved, another abducts women because he wants to drink their blood, a guy loves to sniff handbags, while a psychopath amputates women at will till he gets what he wants. Its definitely not everyone’s cup of tea!

Performances & Dialogues :

Rock solid performances with Ajay Devgn’s classic brooding intensity that we’ve witnessed multiple times in few of his career best roles (Company, Zakhm, Gangaajal, Apaharan, OUATIM, Raid etc.) coming to the fore. Raashi Khanna is a revelation in her attention seeking criminality avatar while Ashish Vidyarthi, Ashwini Kalsekar and Tarun Gahlot add able support. Atul Kulkarni’s fine for the initial episodes but is unable to convincingly justify his character change towards the end. The dialogues are mediocre and unfortunately are unable to complement the dark & ruthless nature of the script and screenplay. A bit of a mismatch as you feel like listening to Rohit Shetty dialogues in a Sriram Raghavan setting.

Action & Cinematography :

Raw, gritty and neat. As mentioned above, the dark tone of the title is implemented both metaphorically and literally. That being said, certain scenes of excess brutality might put off a section of the viewers.

Definitely one of the better & smoother shows to come on Indian digital television and despite the unsettling tone and narrative, its a far more worthwhile watch than a lot of the filthy, abusive and sadistic vile available on a lot of these OTT platforms.

Rating : 7/10