Savi Review: Anil Kapoor is the only saving grace in this prison break film that holds viewers hostage

The film itself is a mixed bag with a few hits but a rather generous number of misses.

There is something about Divya Khosla Kumar’s dialogue delivery and its tonality that makes one wonder if the actress herself is convinced that she is playing the part that she is. When she says, in the most assertive way possible, “aap log jaante ho main criminal ho”, it is barely believable. Such declarations fall flat on their face. The viewer doesn’t buy it because the tone lacks gravitas one expects from a woman who is risking everything as she attempts an audacious jailbreak. Simply put, Kumar is inadequate in her portrayal of Savi and isn’t able to shoulder the weight of the role to her full potential.

In fact, many of the scenes which otherwise would have worked well are marred by Kumar’s typical West Delhi diction. Of course, the explanation here is that she is a Punjabi immigrant in Liverpool but even then, the delivery leaves much to be desired.

The film itself is a mixed bag with a few hits but a rather generous number of misses. Anil Kapoor is Joydeep Paul, an ex-convict who escaped from prison decades ago. He is now Savi’s guardian angel who is fighting tooth and nail to free her husband Nakul Sachdeva—played earnestly by Harshvardhan Rane (or as Paul calls him, ‘emotional baggage’)—from one of London’s high security prisons.

Anil Kapoor appears in multiple disguises through the course of the film—a British detective, a geriatric woman, an old man with a beard as long as Dumbledore and an ice-cream truck driver who wears clown make-up. The justification of these frequent wardrobe changes is that as an ex-convict, Paul doesn’t wish to jeopardise his freedom as he helps Savi free her husband from the lock-up.

The wardrobe changes are unnecessarily exaggerated and truth be told, often come across as a force-fit—perhaps the director's way to show that Kapoor is versatile enough to pull off these offbeat looks. While Kapoor does pull them off, the very purpose of these disguises existing isn’t strong enough. Couldn’t Paul have texted Savi— or mailed her from a burner phone? Surely there could have been another way to communicate with her than putting on a petticoat and a skirt to conceal his identity.
Savi is a typical Punjabi woman in London navigating the world of crime—she asks people for fake passports point blank. Her antics even leave the drug dealers confused at one point. One wonders if the Savi as a character was written originally as dim-witted or she comes across like that due to a mismatch in diction and dialogues. Meanwhile, Rane isn’t given much of a meaty role even though he does justice to whatever little part he plays.

Credit where due, much of the comic relief in the film is courtesy the hilarious camaraderie between Paul (Kapoor) and Savi (Kumar), where the former teaches (or at least, tries to) the latter the intricacies of a successful jailbreak. But wait, why was Nakul even arrested? The reason for his arrest is referenced only twice in the film—once in the beginning and then towards the fag end. It is conveniently forgotten and then brought up in the final 30 minutes, which in all honesty, are a drag.

Once the couple and their kid safely board a ferry, the police go back to the scene of crime to look for the button which is apparently an important piece of evidence. Except the viewer doesn’t really care at this point and is beyond exhausted having followed Savi and Nakul’s overcooked chase sequences through the hospital and the subway. Strangely, one doesn’t really feel for the characters even in the climax—their pain just doesn’t come through and the viewer isn’t invested in the story as much.

The final act of the film is indeed a test of patience, one that made the ‘Exit’ sign of the theatre look tempting. I even prayed for one of my kin to plan a jailbreak for I felt like a prisoner myself. On a positive note, the film gets the colour palette right in its portrayal of London’s grim, dark suburbs. The pace and the editing does generate a lot of intrigue initially but unfortunately cannot make up for a lacklustre performance by the lead.

The final exchange between Savi and Paul at the airport forcefully plugs in mythology into a film which barely references the tale of Savitri rescuing her husband from Yama. It seems more like an afterthought, a dialogue added to justify the title rather than a central theme of the film. Adi, Savi’s son, likes to spell out each letter of every word he says (thanks to his spelling bee preparation). If one were to say it like Adi, director Abhinay Deo’s film Savi, is ‘U N S A T I S F A C T O R Y’.

Savi is now playing in theatres.

Read our review on 'Mr and Mrs Mahi' here: 'Mr And Mrs Mahi' Review: Janhvi Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao's film is a stirring portrait of marriage and ambition