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Bheed movie review: Anubhav Sinha's lockdown tale is a difficult watch that hits you hard

Bheed movie review: rajkummar rao and bhumi pednekar headline anubhav sinha's latest social drama on the exodus of migrant workers during first lockdown..

‘Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar hi jaa rahe hain’. This line in Bheed said by a migrant worker just stayed with me. Narrating the horrific unfolding of events during the unprecedented mass migration amid the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed is brutally honest. High on shock value, it makes your heart ache seeing the hardships and humiliation that thousands of migrants went through during the pandemic. (Also read: All That Breathes review: This Oscar nominee from India is visually stunning doc on need to co-exist )

Bheed movie review: Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in Bheed.

On March 24, 2020, when a nationwide lockdown was announced and state borders were closed to prevent the outbreak of the coronavirus, several migrants who had shifted to cities in search of work, were forced to go back to their native villages. Bheed is an account of what exactly these migrant families suffered.

Sinha has not only chosen a difficult story to tell but he ensures he makes it an equally difficult watch. Shot in stark black and white, Bheed doesn’t let you breathe. If anything, it chokes you, leaving a lump in your throat at several gut-wrenching scenes. Sinha shows no restrain when it comes to showing the pain and plight of these workers. The shocking visuals of migrants sleeping on the railway tracks and being run over by a train, families walking barefoot for miles with bleeding toenails and wounded soles, hungry kids crying and being thrashed by their helpless mums, a watchman trying to arrange food, people hiding in cement mixers, Muslims feeding their own and everyone around, but still being cornered and called names. Even though Sinha doesn’t resort to blood or gore in the shocking scenes, you still feel the impact of his story. Bheed highlights, and fights more inner demons and societal biases, than only the struggles of migrant workers who walked for days and nights wishing to reach their homes in times of crisis. Some did make it, while others did not.

Bheed talks to us through the story of Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao), a young cop who is made the incharge of the checkpost at one of the state borders that’s now closed. He is in love with Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar) who is a doctor and is currently taking care of symptomatic patients stuck at the check-post. There’s Singh saab (Aditya Shrivastava) who is Rao’s subordinate but clearly doesn’t want to obey orders. Among the migrants on the other side of the barricading, there’s Dia Mirza from the privileged class in her Fortuner, who doesn’t flinch an eyelid when the driver Kanaiya (Sushil Pandey) offers to bribe the cops to let them cross the border. Then, there’s Trivedi Babu (Pankaj Kapur) who only wants to save his ailing brother and help the fellow passengers in the bus get some food from the nearby closed mall. He insists he won’t steal but would pay for it. There’s also a young girl carrying her alcoholic father on a bicycle. Amid all this, Vidhi Tripathi (Kritika Kamra) as a TV journalist is covering all this from angles that she can see, or at times, through her cameraman Nasir Munir’s lens.

At 114 minutes, Bheed neither wastes time building the premise nor its core characters. I must credit the director here for so convincingly introducing each character to us without delving too much into their back stories yet telling enough. The story that Sinha has co-written Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain manages to keep you intrigued. It’s the writing, I feel, that’s a true winner. There are dialogues cleverly peppered with an underlined sarcasm that you can’t miss. ‘Hamara nyaay hamari aukaat se bohot bahar hai’ or ‘Gareeb aadmi ke liye kabhi intezaam nahi hota’ are some lines that hit you hard.

There’s a scene with Kritika Kamra draws an analogy with an overloaded straw-truck with that of society and the fear that it may end up getting scattered and turn into a divided crowd, is extremely well-written. Another well shot moment is when Kapur ridicules the healthcare staff dressed in PPE kits and calls them ‘nautanki’ while they are testing his brother for Covid symptoms. These all remind us of how actually millions of people behaved when first wave of Covid hit our shores.

However, some portions did appear excessive. For instance, I didn’t understand the context of ingesting a lovemaking scene between Rao and Pednekar. Yes, it was important to distinctly underline the class divide in their relationship, but there were ample strong scenes later in the film through which the point could be well conveyed. The sex scene was surely avoidable. Then, you sense the constant hammering on the caste bias in our society with Rao’s character being targeted by everyone. That, to me, appeared a bit too much. I wouldn’t say it takes away from the core focus on the pain of migrants, but it does bring a shift of emotions when Rao’s story takes precedence over the main issue. And why weren’t the cops wearing mask? I mean you preach only what you follow.

Story aside, some really nuanced performances additionally make Bheed a great watch. I won’t be exaggerating if I term is as one of the finest ensemble casting in recent times. Rao and Pednekar are in top form with their dialect, body language, confidence and the way they emote on screen. Their strength and vulnerability both touch you. Mirza looked flawless playing a flawed character of a rich woman whose patience is tested in trying times and she lets her circumstances dictate her choice of actions and words. Kapur is exceptional and wins you over with his brilliance in each frame. He displays calm while politely asking cops for an outcome of a political meeting about the opening of borders, and shows aggression when it comes to fighting for his own people. Rana and Shrivastava add gravitas to the narrative with some heavyweight dialogues, and their expressions. Kamra’s track started off as a narrator and had pivotal pieces to join initially, but eventually doesn’t get much scope to shine or leave an impact.

Overall, Bheed states the facts as is and doesn’t try to lace them with them anything fancy or unreal. A few cinematic liberties definitely would have been taken and understandably so, but never to an extent that it completely washes out the truth. Sinha keeps the tussle between the class, power, caste and religion on till the very last minute. And the end credits aptly sum up the migrant crisis and their unforgettable pain with Herail Ba. Watch it if you truly care to know the truth and what happened with those thousand of migrants who were rendered homeless due to the pandemic without any fault of theirs.

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Bheed Reviews

Powered by persuasive performances by Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Kapur, and Aditya Srivastava, the film addresses the spectre of caste and class divide in the times of COVID-19.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2024

Bheed (written by Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain) never comes across as surface level representation. Part of the reason being the film is telling a story we are acquainted with if not conversant with the details.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

Anubhav Sinha’s black-and-white film exposes social injustice with pieces arranged for a big bang, only to splutter and subside, but not before raising some uncomfortable questions.

Full Review | Jun 1, 2023

Furious but compassionate, bleak yet not entirely without hope, Bheed is a movie defined by duality — of its characters, its themes, and even its politics.

Full Review | May 28, 2023

Bheed offers a realistic and sometimes alarming look at how social class structures and prejudices can affect people in a crisis. It's a rare COVID-19 pandemic drama that isn't crassly exploitative of this deadly pandemic.

Full Review | Apr 5, 2023

Bheed equally suffers from its hesitancy to follow through on its convictions...

Full Review | Mar 24, 2023

Most of the cast is excellent, even if the shot-taking descends into arthouse every-frame-a-painting territory. At least the film commits to its crowded ideas.

There’s a lesson for everyone in the film. The first and foremost lesson being how deeply ingrained the caste divide is.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2023

What Bheed might lack in depth and nuance, it makes up for with an underlying sense of urgency.

Bheed states the facts as is and doesn’t try to lace them with them anything fancy or unreal. A few cinematic liberties definitely would have been taken and understandably so, but never to an extent that it completely washes out the truth.

Anubhav Sinha, in his cinematic portrayal of a certain phase of the pandemic, comes really close to the real-life trauma faced by thousands...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 24, 2023

With the context missing, this well-intentioned film becomes less than its powerful moving parts.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 24, 2023

The actors merge with the film's physical space to absolute perfection and achieve phenomenal emotional depth.

While Bheed is well-intentioned, it feels hurriedly written.

Anubhav Sinha has earned a reputation for questioning the establishment...at a time when it has become dangerous to do so... Cinematically, (Bheed) shines only sporadically, but as a mark of defiance against a repressive regime, it is remarkable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.75/5 | Mar 24, 2023

Taking a scalpel to the caste system, director Anubhav Sinha exposes how sub-castes and other divisions stamp out solidarity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 23, 2023

Bheed (2023)

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Bheed Review: Rajkummar Rao And Pankaj Kapur Deliver Outstanding Performances

Bheed review: the other cast members - notably ashutosh rana, bhumi pednekar, dia mirza and aditya srivastava - are no less effective..

<i>Bheed</i> Review: Rajkummar Rao And Pankaj Kapur Deliver Outstanding Performances

Cast : Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Rating : Four stars (out of 5)

In Bheed , out in the theatres three years to the day after the first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown was announced, writer-director-producer Anubhav Sinha quotes Bob Marley and the Wailers' Buffalo Soldier to stress the importance of knowing "your history" and being conscious of "where you coming from".

In presenting a fictional account of the impact of the pandemic - and (especially) of the total nationwide lockdown - on migrant workers and daily wage earners left to fend for themselves, Bheed , filmed entirely in black and white, does indeed point to where we have come from and where we are headed as a nation riven by disparities.

The film expresses the agony of the voiceless and exudes compassion and empathy for people condemned to languish on the margins of a society that does not care enough. It uses the fallout of a sudden lockdown to ruminate on the privileges we take for granted and the inequities we choose to ignore.

The gutsy, multi-pronged narrative, peppered with allusions to the idea of India, with its strengths and failings, lays bare the fractures and fissures that undermine the essence of a diverse and complex nation enervated by deep schisms.

Bheed opens with a harrowing sequence of exhausted, faceless people - it isn't a crowd, only a small group - walking along a rail track. As they lie down to rest, the shrill wail of a train whistle pierces the silence of the night. The sound soon merges with the wails of humans, a disquieting pointer to what is to come.

Anurag Saikia's music score, which later uses the high-pitched sound of a shehnai - it resembles an unsettling howl - that turns a lovemaking scene involving an unmarried inter-case couple into an evocation of the unease of nervous defiance rather than into an avowal of all-conquering passion.

Bheed is a testament to a time when the nation's underclass was thrown into the deep end without so much as a bare-minimum contingency plan. The sorry spectacle that played out in our cities and on our highways exposed our collective indifference to people exploited, marginalised and conditioned to accept their precarious plight.

The film is a vivid chronicle of many divides - between the government and the governed, the law and the common man, the rich and the poor, the privileged and the downtrodden, the sensitive and the callous - that are aggravated no end when the nation is hit by a crisis of the magnitude of a pandemic.

Bheed is a hard-hitting film that, in addition to being an act of courage, is an urgent plea to the privileged to shed their habitual complacency. It shows how a calamity can batter a society where marginalisation of the weak and othering of minorities are the norm.

The screenplay, written by Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain, lays bare the fault lines in a stark, austere manner. The acuity of the visuals is accentuated by Soumik Mukherjee's restive but unobtrusive camerawork and Atanu Mukherjee's editing rhythms, diluted somewhat by censor board-imposed excisions.

Notwithstanding the deletions, Bheed makes its point forcefully enough. Not that a film can change the way a nation thinks, but Bheed does a commendable job of telling a story - in fact, a bunch of stories - that simply needed to be told.

Parts of Bheed may feel a touch simplistic because it inevitably has to interpret complex issues in basic and instantly tangible terms, but not for a moment does the film about desperate people scrambling to return to their villages as state borders are sealed and the police are ordered to stop them appear anything less than pertinent.

With the aid of a terrific ensemble cast that is in perfect sync with the purpose of the film, Sinha crafts a portrait of a world where the poor and the powerless, irrespective of their caste identities, are left to fend for themselves.

Caste and power structures are jumbled up with intent to pit a Brahmin watchman against a Dalit policeman. The former, a village priest's son, is watchman Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur). He is divested of his social capital.

The cop, a low-caste cop with an altered family name that conceals his identity, is Surya Kumar Singh. He is charged with imposing the will of the state on the men (and their families) who have hit the road without a clue about where it might lead.

Bheed is a follow-up to Sinha's Mulk and Article 15 in both thematic and creative terms. Like Mulk , it touches upon the subject of Islamophobia via a reference to the calumny heaped upon the Tablighi Jamaat during the pandemic. A group of Muslim men led by a bearded old man faces humiliation when he distributes food packets among stranded and starving migrants.

In the manner of Article 15 , it captures the repercussions of caste violence on the defenceless through the back story of the male lead, who has personally suffered atrocities. And like both the films, Bheed falls back on multiple stories drawn from news reportage to weave its narrative.

A deserted shopping mall, fittingly named Lotus Oasis, serves as a metaphor for a bubble that becomes the site of a final impasse between the police and a man who decides to take the law into his hands in his fight to ward off hunger.

It is around this mall that almost the entire film plays out. The police hurriedly place barricades on the road outside the edifice - it is totally out of sync with the environs - and buses and other vehicles are stopped in their tracks. Tensions mount, tempers rise and the animated negotiations that ensue go nowhere.

Circle Officer Subhash Yadav (Ashutosh Rana) makes Surya the in-charge of the police post bypassing a Thakur, Ram Singh (Aditya Shrivastava) - a move whose effects manifest themselves in varied ways. That isn't the only caste fissure that Surya has to negotiate - the girl he loves is Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), a medical intern sent to the spot with test kits and medicines.

A small-time politician's relative believes that he and his men are above the law and that the barricades are for the less privileged. A lady (Dia Mirza) is desperate to reach her daughter's hostel before her estranged husband can get there.

A young girl (Aditi Subedi), saddled with an alcoholic father (Omkar Das Manikpuri), struggles to find a way out. Amid the pandemonium, a television reporter Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) is hard-pressed to do her job flummoxed as she is at how things are panning out.

The actors merge with the film's physical space to absolute perfection and achieve phenomenal emotional depth. Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Kapur deliver outstanding performances that enhance the impact of the film. The other cast members - notably Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza and Aditya Srivastava - are no less effective.

One character, a cynical photojournalist, says: 'We are a sick society'. Bheed emphasises how that fear may not be baseless. It asserts that it isn't a virus alone that is to blame for what ails us. The malaise runs much deeper. Anubhav Sinha does not shy away from staring the rot in the face. Is there anything more exciting than a filmmaker who stands up to be counted?

Cast Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra

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Bheed Review: Anubhav Sinha’s Portrait of the Lockdown Succeeds More Than it Fails

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Writers: Sonali Jain, Saumya Tiwari, Anubhav Sinha

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Aditya Srivastava, Dia Mirza, Kritika Kamra, Virendra Saxena

It says something about the modern relationship between the state of art and the art of state that Bheed will firstly be known as a ‘brave’ film. Its identity will always be linked to its courage. Bheed , meaning “crowd”, tells a story shaped by the chaos of the 2020 migrant exodus. The film is set in the weeks following the sudden announcement of India’s first Covid-19 lockdown, back when institutional apathy led crores of marooned workers in the cities to depart for their villages on foot. The images of their internal displacement made global headlines, citing comparisons to the Partition of 1947. In other words, here’s a mainstream Hindi movie – with a solid cast to boot – about India’s most recent government-induced tragedy. That it exists, in whatever capacity, is commendable. But is a film like Bheed good solely by virtue of being important? That’s the Anubhav Sinha Question.

Sinha’s movies often say the right (or left?) things, but they’re also undercut by a bleeding-heart-liberal aesthetic. Some of it feels like Twitter Filmmaking, a syndrome defined by urban storytellers building socially expressive stories as a reaction to online discourse. The director’s rage is either too verbose ( Mulk ), too righteous ( Article 15 ) or too pretentious ( Anek ). Given the circumstances, however, I’d say Bheed succeeds more than it fails. For starters, the narrative scale is tactful. It goes for a single situation – one that serves as a microcosm of a country on the brink – rather than a broad and sprawling sweep of time. Much of the film unfolds over the course of an afternoon at a check post between two unnamed states – where several colliding characters represent the several stricken sections of society. As a result, there’s a real-time urgency to the film. Nothing is certain, the law keeps shifting shape, and information is as invisible as the victims of a developing economy. What we see, then, is the map and machinations of India condensed into the parameters of an outdoor chamber drama. The symbolism isn’t exactly subtle, but it’s efficient.

No border and conflict is spared. There’s a bit of caste: An “in-charge” cop, Surya Kumar Singh (Rajkummar Rao), is torn between the oppressive morality of his job and the trauma of his hidden surname. There’s a bit of science: His girlfriend, Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), is an on-duty doctor and the only voice of reason there. There’s a bit of religion: After seeing the news of the Tablighi Jamaat hotspot on ‘Fakebook,’ a bus full of famished security guards and their families, led by a frantic Trivedi (a terrific Pankaj Kapur), refuses to accept meal packets from a bus full of Muslims. There’s a bit of Parasite -inspired class: Stranded in her Toyota Fortuner, a wealthy woman (Dia Mirza) expects the full servitude of her driver (Sushil Pandey) while joking about ‘their’ strong immunity. She keeps an eye on a poor teenage girl and her alcoholic father, convinced that the girl might find a secret route the way rats find an escape. There’s also a bit of journalism: An idealistic news anchor (Kritika Kamra) stays at odds with a cynical photojournalist (Karan Pandit) while covering the crisis. And, of course, there’s a bit of visual form. I’d like to believe that the black-and-white palette is a heavy-footed nod to social disparity and the late photojournalist Danish Siddiqui’s portraiture of suffering – and not a defiant ode to Schindler’s List (1993), the film most cited by the defenders of The Kashmir Files (2022). (Sinha has said in an interview that he chose to film in black and white to signal a similarity to the experiences of those who survived the violent migration of Partition.)

One might argue that the staging is self-conscious. For instance, an empty mall in the middle of nowhere looks too planted. The mall will naturally play a role in the face-off between the hungry migrants and the police; it will prompt lyrical ramblings about “aukaat” and boundaries. The transformation arc of Surya Kumar, too, seems inevitable, as though he were a lovechild of the protagonists from Newton (2017) and Article 15 (2019). Ditto for an overwrought Incredible India debate between the two journalists. There are classic film-school oversells. Like the shot of the reporters eating lunch while wondering why the nearby villages aren’t feeding the migrants. Or the anchor’s penchant for introspective observations (the sort that equate ‘samaaj’ and ‘bheed’) that double up as voiceovers. The first scene of the film is especially strange. It features something brutal – a tired family dozes off on a railway track at night; a train approaches – but plays out more like a parody of poverty. They look and converse like Raju Rastogi’s black-and-white-film family members from 3 Idiots (2009).

Yet there’s a lot to like about Bheed . Its politics are more suggestive than aggressive, evident in how the virus is as inconspicuous as the government. One is sensed, the other is feared. We never actually see the few people with Covid-19 symptoms, just as we never hear of the orders from above. I like that the film plays out like a lost chapter of history. Our engagement stems from our own relationship with the past. There’s the duality of watching a high-stakes thriller while being aware that every victory – a hopeful ending, a coming-of-age journey, a diffusion of violence – is only a lesser form of defeat. Consequently, we watch things unfold with a tinge of sympathy, knowing that this is only the beginning of a long and unequal lockdown. The intent is to show that survival is a great equalizer. But there’s also a sense that humans practice prejudice to explain injustice the same way they embrace religion to explain grief. Trivedi, for example, is so disturbed by his inability to feed his community that he wields his upper-caste Hinduism as a fading weapon. When the reporter, Vidhi, requests to interview Surya about the “Muslim bus,” he asks her if that’s the only story she sees there. Similarly, Surya’s boss (Ashutosh Rana) and bitter rival (Aditya Srivastava) say the term ‘naxalite’ like it isn’t part of their personal vocabulary. You can sense that their language is a coping mechanism, a tool to rationalize the pain of being underpaid puppets.

I like that Bheed subscribes to the cinema of perspective, too. The events on the day play out like a war movie, in which a hollow concept of patriotism makes the soldiers turn on each other. What’s happening pales in comparison to what is, which is why Bheed rarely feels as smug as Sinha’s last few films. The little touches of craft help. A well-performed sex scene establishes Surya as an overthinker, a worrier who is cursed with the gift of processing the world differently than his colleagues. The character doesn’t always work – particularly in the physical final act – but Rao’s acting gives the film an emotional fulcrum. Some scenes insist on telling instead of showing, literally spelling out the composition of frames. Fortunately, the rhythm doesn’t allow the viewer to dwell on these issues.

Most of the cast is excellent, even if the shot-taking descends into arthouse every-frame-a-painting territory. At least the film commits to its crowded ideas. This ensures that when the controversial Partition line is muted, the sudden silence raises even more awareness about the weight of these words. The gag ironically reflects the core theme of Bheed , a movie that’s all about cries falling on deaf ears. It’s where the art of the state unwittingly elevates the state of art. And it’s where Bheed graduates from euphemistic adjectives like brave. After all, what is dissent today if not the dialect of decency?

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‘Bheed’: Review

By Namrata Joshi 2023-03-24T12:02:00+00:00

Anubhav Sinha’s black-and-white drama takes an unflinching look at India’s Covid-19 migration crisis

Source: Benaras Media Works

Director: Anubhav Sinha. India. 2023. 114minutes

There’s no denying the fact that Anubhav Sinha has been audacious in choosing to make a film on the critical issue of enforced mass migration of India’s working class—from big city workplaces back to their home towns and villages—during the first wave of Covid-19 in 2020. The sudden imposition of lockdown and border closures, ostensibly to contain the spread of virus, economic cutbacks, lack of jobs and wages and administrative apathy, had made it impossible for people to survive in the urban jungles; a horrifying reality worth documenting many times over in cinema.

What Bheed might lack in depth and nuance, it makes up for with an underlying sense of urgency

Controversy erupted online in the wake of Bheed ’s first trailer, in which Sinha compared India’s class, caste and religious divides of Covid-19 with the Partition of 1947. Dialogue cuts imposed by the country’s Central Board of Film Certification — including the removal of a voiceover by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the lockdown — have diluted those comparisons, and resulted in some obviously jagged storytelling which can only provoke sympathy for Sinha over the loss of his original vision. Yet it remains to be seen whether even this truncated version may still be too discomforting for some viewers. The film’s performance won’t just determine Bollywood’s financial muscle but will also be a measure of the nation’s collective memory of its own recent past.

Bheed – a Hindi word which translates to ‘crowd’ – is poised, a tad lumberingly, between the real and the fictional. On one hand it recreates some real-life incidents, straight from the news headlines, with very little creative imagination, ingenuity or nuance but a distinct sense of emotional manipulation. Such moments include the tragic deaths of tired workers sleeping by the railway tracks, while others are fumigated en masse against the virus near the state borders.

On the other hand, there is a focus on a group of fictionalised characters and multiple narrative strands—not all of them evenly handled—that collide at a police checkpoint. The theme unifying all these subplots is that of the endemic social fault-lines, the multi-hued differences and divisions captured ironically through a black and white palette.

A group of Hindu security guards and their families, led by Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), is suspicious of the Muslims, thinking of them as Covid super-spreaders. A well-heeled lady (Dia Mirza) in her fancy car jokes heartlessly about the presumed immunity of the poor. A bunch of cops, in charge of the post, are seemingly empowered by their uniforms, but still battling caste-based prejudices in their own lives. A young idealistic journalist Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) and her cynical photographer colleague (Karan Pandit) argue about the state of the nation while documenting the ongoing human exodus.

The subplot involving the policemen captures the most attention, more so because of the persuasive ensemble of actors including Ashutosh Rana and Aditya Srivastav. Rajkummar Rao is particularly riveting as young cop Surya Kumar Singh who hides his surname and identity and is fighting the demons of the caste system — not just in the world outside but the anxieties entrenched deep within himself while trying to find poise and equanimity in his relationship with upper caste doctor Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar).

The film might kick off with a focus on the migrant workers, but their plight is better grounded in the background song ‘Hirail Ba’ than the film itself. The administrative apathy towards the dispossessed may not be openly critiqued, but is a perennial silent backdrop against which the action unfolds. In fact, the very absence of any form of State help becomes an unwitting comment, especially in ironic juxtaposition against a righteous remark about ‘Incredible India’. What Bheed might lack in depth and nuance, it makes up for with an underlying sense of urgency and a righteous call for overhauling the justice system by handing it over to the poor and the powerless.

Production company: Benaras Media Works

International distribution: Reliance Media, [email protected]

Producer: Anubhav Sinha

Screenplay: Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari, Sonali Jain

Cinematography: Soumik Mukherjee

Editor: Atanu Mukherjee

Production Design: Nikhil Kovale

Music: Anurag Saikia

Main cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur, Aditya Srivastav, Kritika Kamra, Dia Mirza, Sushil Pandey

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Bheed Movie Review: Rajkummar Rao's black-and-white film has all the colours of pain

Rajkummar rao's bheed is a lockdown thriller that follows the migrant workers trying to get back to their homes during the covid-19 pandemic. the film hits too close to home and brings back painful memories from covid days, says our review..

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Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in Bheed.

Bheed released in theatres on March 24.
It stars Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in lead roles.
The film is directed by Anubhav Sinha.

Cast & Crew

Anubhav Sinha Bheed

Rajkummar Rao

Release Date: 24 Mar, 2023

When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit India, people panicked, stocked up on ration and locked themselves at home. Some were with family while others were stuck alone in different cities. However, it was the migrant labourers who were left confused and stranded on the roads while trying to get back to their villages. And if there was someone who could translate those raw emotions on screen, it's Anubhav Sinha. In his film, Bheed, that released today, March 24, the filmmaker brilliantly made us recall the painful memories of the pandemic.

The migrants stranded on the roads, a mother's struggle to bring her daughter back from another city, a frontline doctor, a police, a politician, reporters bringing the sufferings of the migrants - Bheed has it all and yet it doesn't feel cramped or dramatic. Shot in black and white, the film is as raw as it can get, making your heart wrench several times.

‘Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar hi jaa rahe hain’. A migrant worker says this line in Bheed and that perfectly sums up the storyline of the film. Shot majorly on one single road, Bheed narrates the horrifying time faced by labourers who had left their villages to earn their livelihood in different cities. However, when the government-imposed Covid-19 lockdown was announced in the country in May 2020, it led to the exodus of about 10 million migrant workers. In Bheed, we have a police officer, played by Rajkummar Rao, who is put in charge of blocking roads to stop people returning to their villages, in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. The labourers are made to wait on the roads and surrounding fields without any food and water. A mother (Dia Mirza) is desperately waiting to cross the UP border to take her daughter back home. A young girl with a sick father on her bicycle finds ways to get back home.

The duty in-charge, Surya's (Rajkumar Rao) character, is written very well. While he tries to follow the law and order to his best, he is also divided by the casteism he faces every time. Bhumi Pednekar plays the role of a doctor and Surya's girlfriend. Even with Rajkummar leading the show, Anubhav manages not to shift the focus from the main issue. Pankaj Kapur belongs to the Pandit community in Bheed, and he plays a pivotal role.

Bheed is brutally honest that it will make your heart ache revisiting the hardships migrants went through during the pandemic. With a difficult story like this to tell, Anubhav Sinha made sure one gets uncomfortable watching it. Unlike mainstream Bollywood cinema, the filmmaker stayed away from the drama but kept the script restrained and tight. Nothing is politicised here, it's all about emotions.

"No one ever plans for the poor," says Rajkummar Rao, exposing the faulty lines of class conflict. Bheed takes a closer look at the social divide and class system in Indian society.

Three cheers to the cinematography team. Bheed shows shocking visuals of migrants sleeping on the railway tracks and being run over by a train, people walking barefoot with their bloody toenails, hungry kids crying and much more. Watch out for the scene where people are caught hiding in cement mixers. Even with no blood, Bheed is gory. Throughout the movie, no time is wasted in building up the story. Dialogues like ‘Hamara nyaay hamari aukaat se bohot bahar hai’ or ‘Gareeb aadmi ke liye kabhi intezaam nahi hota’ will keep you hooked.

There's a scene when Pankaj bashes a doctor wearing a PPE kit while treating his brother. He calls it 'nautanki' and even goes on to say 'sardi khasi hai bas, Covid thodi hai.' This reminds us of the time all of us reacted when Covid first hit India. Anubhav had taken even the smallest of details in mind.

Rajkummar Rao has given a brilliant performance as a police officer. He doesn't hold back and gives his best. Bhumi Pednekar does an equally good job. However, their sex scene didn't make sense and could have been done away with.

Bheed will choke you with tears and will leave a lump in your throat. The film will make you realise how privileged you were during the Covid-19 pandemic times. If you want to know the raw truth about those who were homeless during the Covid days, then Bheed can be your pick.

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'bheed' review: a poignant & gripping look into tragedy and human nature, anubhav sinha's 'bheed', starring rajkumar rao and bhumi pednekar, released on 24 march..

Where do we draw the line between documentary and fictional retellings and if these lines are challenged, where does the audience stand?

Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha returns to the screens with yet another poignant topic with Bheed . Before Bheed , the director has touched upon patriarchy (Thappad), caste-based discrimination and violence (Article 15), religion and extremism (Mulk), and more.

Bheed , written by Sinha, Saumya Tiwari, and Sonali Jain, delves into the migrant crisis in India during the COVID lockdowns. By weaving actual news into a fictional narrative, Sinha creates a gripping film.

Anubhav Sinha's 'Bheed', starring Rajkumar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar, released on 24 March.

Rajkummar Rao in a still from 'Bheed.'

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

Rajkumar Rao as Surya Kumar Singh Tikas, plays a cop who is made in-charge of a check post while thousands are trying to cross state borders to return home.

In a particularly heart-wrenching scene, Pankaj Kapur's Balram Trivedi laments that they're trying to go back home and have also left behind their homes.

A still from from the film 'Bheed.'

Rao is impressive in his role and captures the intricacies of his character brilliantly. In his scenes with Bhumi Pednekar (Renu Sharma) or Kapur, the audience can't help but feel like two fine actors are expertly playing off of each other.

As people continue to line up near the check post and tempers flare, fault lines of caste conflict, class conflict, and more emerge. The film also dives into how irresponsible coverage during the COVID pandemic only made existent xenophobia and Islamophobia worse.

Sinha contrasts this with Renu Sharma, a healthcare worker and the sole voice of reason who few listen to.

On the other hand, Surya's story explores how deeply entrenched caste discrimination is in our society. Despite rising in the ranks in the force, Surya constantly comes face-to-face with bigotry, from within the force and beyond.

Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao star in the film.

Trivedi, a helpless but bigoted patriarch, constantly puts his biases before the needs of his people and it's refreshing that Sinha doesn't paint him as a character who has a sudden change of heart.

Beyond this, there's also a Parasite -esque parallel arc starring Dia Mirza as a woman enroute to pick her daughter from a hostel. She watches everything unfold from the comfort of her Fortuner and despite trying to showcase empathy, only does it within the confines of her privilege.

Pankaj Kapur plays a pivotal role in the film.

There is a lot to like about Bheed but it isn't without flaws. Some of the scenes come off as more preachy than thoughtful. The desire to cover several aspects of the crisis clashes with the need for well-sketched-out characters.

Mirza and Kritika Kamra as the well-intentioned journalist Vidhi Prabhakar come and go from one scene to another without much to hold on to. That is not to say that the actors falter in their performance. They take what they're given and manage to leave a mark on the film. But perhaps they deserved more.

Kritika Kamra in 'Bheed.'

Soumik Mukherjee as the DOP and Atanu Mukherjee as the editor, work hand-in-hand to create imagery in Bheed that's both powerful and doesn't exploit its subjects. The decision to make the entire film black-and-white might work for some and might not for others. Personally, it does.

A still from the film 'Bheed.'

These creative decisions are only bolstered by Anita Kushwaha's affecting sound design and Mangesh Dhadke's moving background score.

Is it too soon to make a film like Bheed ? Is it ever the right time to retell stories of human suffering? You'll leave the theater with these questions swimming around in your head. But it'll be tough to deny that the film is powerful and manages to tell the story it set out to tell, well.

Rating: 3.5/5

Pics: Javed Akhtar, Rajkummar Rao, Dia Mirza & Others Attend 'Bheed' Screening

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‘Bheed’ movie review: Anubhav Sinha’s cry for social justice needs to be heard

Powered by persuasive performances by rajkummar rao, pankaj kapur, and aditya srivastava, the film addresses the spectre of caste and class divide in the times of covid-19.

Updated - March 25, 2023 03:55 pm IST

Published - March 24, 2023 10:54 am IST

Rajkummar Rao in a still from ‘Bheed’

While covering the mass migration of workers from cities to villages during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, one realised who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from. When borders were drawn within the country, the virus also exposed our weak social immunity spilled in the form of bheed on national highways and railway tracks.

This week, director Anubhav Sinha has kneaded the infection of novel coronavirus with insidious social discrimination to craft a compelling statement that stands out in the crowd of films made during the pandemic.

Bheed (Hindi)

Deeply political in its thought, provocative in its composition, and humane in its gaze, Bheed shows us the mirror that we took off our walls once the pandemic receded into the background.

Set at a junction on the State border, it is an account of a caravan of migrants of different social hues who are stopped by a police officer who is dealing with another virus that is prevailing for centuries in society. The writers (Sinha, Saumya Tiwari, and Sonali Jain) tie up the diverse snapshots of people caught in the unprecedented situation fairly well.

It is the incisive dialogues that propel the story. When the protagonist says, “we could not make arrangements for them (migrant workers) when they were in the villages, we could not take care of them when they were in the cities and now we could not take care of them when they are back,” it sums up the situation for things haven’t changed back home. Shot in black and white, early in the film, we watch the stark image of a severely injured person who is beaten up because he dared to drink water from a place of worship during the pandemic.

Also Read : Anubhav Sinha on ‘Bheed’, Bhushan Kumar, and changes to trailer

As someone who addressed the caste matrix well in Article 15 , Sinha once again cries for social justice without romanticising it. The film states that the market has systematically turned migrant workers into cheap labour and that they would return at the first opportunity. If Article 15 was from the gaze of a high-caste police officer finding his feet in a difficult situation; the companion piece is from the point of view of a lower-rung officer, caught between his social identity and an unprecedented state of affairs.

The audience have to closely listen to the surnames of the characters as the film captures how caste informs the behaviour of a person. Spurred by the unprecedented situation, Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), an upper caste watchman of a high rise in a metropolis, turns into a different kettle of fish when he is a few kilometres away from his village. But Surya Kumar Singh ( Rajkummar Rao ), a young, upright police officer, isn’t sure of his power even when he is made the in-charge of the post by his well-meaning superior Yadav (Ashutosh Rana), because his lower caste identity comes in the way.

When COVID-19 generates a new social order where everybody is almost equally helpless, Surya starts seeing his reflection in the eyes of Balram who is seeking food for his family members. The psychological unraveling of Surya and Balram’s desperation to assert his social superiority in a desperate situation makes Bheed an engaging and important watch.

One of the most stirring strands of the film is how the spectre of caste has scarred the soul of Surya, so much so that it has affected his performance in his love life. In love with an upper caste girl, Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), who is strangely unaware of what the relationship entails, Surya could not shake off his caste identity when he takes off his shirt. That he carries two stars on the shoulders of his uniform doesn’t empower him enough to open up a closed mall for the migrants or stand up to Balram when he threatens to take the law into his hands. He may be a part of the System but for Surya, justice is still in the hands of the socially powerful.

Sinha doesn’t lose the opportunity to process the satire that inadvertently surfaces in the tense situation and one could sense the contribution of script consultant Anjum Rajabali. Like when Balram goes out of hand, the circle officer Yadav (Ashutosh Rana) asks Ram Singh (Aditya Srivastava), the ‘real’ Singh among the policemen, what has happened to Surya? Ram Singh, unable to process the pain of Surya, strikes a dramatic pose and replies, “woh aahat hain” (He is hurt!).

The writers have woven select shocking episodes that happened during the lockdown into the narrative but haven’t milked them for melodrama. They suggest that the decision-making apparatus had also gone into a hang. The meetings that were said to be happening to decide the fate of workers were only for social media consumption but when the concrete mixer is allowed to pass through, someone remarks, ‘ sadak banti rahegi’ (the infrastructure work will continue). The film also takes on the skewed sense of a section of the mediapersons. The Tablighi-Jamaat episode plays out only in passing as Sinha steers clear of the temptation of making it the driving force. In fact, Surya tells Vidhi (Kritika Kamra), a well-meaning journalist struggling to make sense of the situation, that she should come out of her Hindu-Muslim obsession to understand the world better.

Cast in a challenging role where there is no connection between the body language and what’s cooking inside the character, Rajkummar deftly brings out the relentless squirming inside Surya. Kapur ensures that Balram doesn’t become a caricature and Rana brings out the pressures that the officer of an in-between caste endures and how he strikes a balance. They are ably supported by the ever-reliable Aditya and Virendra Saxena. Bhumi is not bad as the doctor in love on duty and so isn’t Dia Mirza, cast against type, as a self-seeking mother. The persuasive performances are backed by folksy tunes that blend with the visuals.

There are passages when the screenplay feels a little scattered and it seems that the dialogues are being addressed more to the audience than to the characters to tick some predictable boxes. In between, Sinha, who is also the producer of the film, ensures that the film doesn’t earn the tag of ‘anti-national’ but the compromises don’t blunt the bite of Bheed .

Bheed is currently running in theatres

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Bheed movie review: Filmmaking as an act of defiance

Anubhav Sinha’s account of migrant workers’ en masse return to their villages at the start of the pandemic is a basket of courage and convolutions in the writing of social divisions in the midst of a tragedy.

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Sushil Pandey, Aditya Srivastava, Pankaj Kapoor, Kritika Kamra, Ashutosh Rana, Virendra Saxena, Aditi Subedi

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Language: Hindi

Two years back, in 2021, writer-director Vinod Kapri’s documentary 1232 Kms was released online. Set early in the COVID19 pandemic, it followed a group of male migrant workers from Ghaziabad in UP cycling all the way back to their home villages in Bihar following the abrupt declaration of a nationwide lockdown by the Central government in March 2020. The men were openly critical of the administration’s apathy towards them, and 1232 Kms bravely made no bones about who it held accountable. The film began with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech announcing the lockdown. It also described the movement of desperate workers during the pandemic as “the largest human exodus since the Partition of India”.

In 2023, freedom of expression in India has reached a stage where the latter two elements have created a storm in the context of a new project. Writer-director Anubhav Sinha ’s black-and-white fiction feature Bheed (Crowd), also pegged on the migrant workers’ crisis, comes to theatres in the shadow of certain troubling developments: among them, Bheed ’s trailer was released, pulled down and an edited version re-released. Sinha confirmed what the media reported, that the trailer originally featured the PM’s address to the nation and mentioned the Partition. Having seen Bheed , I can confirm that the narrative in its entirety too does not contain either of these.

It is challenging to review a film when you are not sure how much of what you’ve seen is a product of the Censor Board’s scissors and/or fear of the Board. Bheed, in the form that we get to see it, does not make any specific, overt reference to the current government, the governing party or any particular politician. The irony is that this serves to highlight the truth that the very act of making this film, thus addressing mis-governance during the pandemic, is courageous in the present political atmosphere.

Bheed ’s story is by Sinha, with the screenplay and dialogues credited to Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain. The film is set at the very start of the lockdown when workers had just begun an en masse return to their villages and even the rich were struggling to come to terms with the unprecedented restrictions. In this scenario, we meet Surya Kumar Singh (Rajkummar Rao), an ambitious policeman who belongs to an oppressed caste and is in love with a medical professional called Renu Sharma, played by Bhumi Pednekar. (Surya does not use his caste title – when he reveals it, the reactions he attracts suggest that he is Dalit, although the only reference I could find online to that surname is regarding a real-life person claiming a Scheduled Tribe, not Scheduled Caste i.e. Dalit, certificate.) Renu is Brahmin. Surya’s colleague, Ram Singh (Aditya Srivastava), becomes resentful when their boss, Inspector Yadav (Ashutosh Rana), places the young man in charge of a police post at a state border that has been sealed.

Among the scores of people who arrive at the spot guarded by Surya and his team is a wealthy woman called Geetanjali (Dia Mirza) who is in a hurry to pick up her daughter from her hostel. Geetanjali fears that if her estranged husband gets there first, his early arrival will become a weapon in a bitter custody battle. She is accompanied by her driver Kanhaiya (Sushil Pandey). Also there is a busload of workers and their families, led by Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapoor) and Dubey (Virendra Saxena). A bedraggled young woman (Aditi Subedi) is trying to get her drunken father (Omkar Das Manikpuri) home. And a famous TV journalist (Kritika Kamra) zeroes in on this location for her reporting.

Bheed alludes to fake news spreading on social media and WhatsApp during the pandemic. Looming as a constant in the background without being spelt out is government indifference to the plight of the citizenry, especially the poor. The film’s predominant theme is neither though. Bheed ’s focus is social division rearing its head even in the midst of an unfolding tragedy, in particular, upper-caste prejudice, upper-class selfishness and religious bigotry.

The handling of casteism and religious sectarianism in the script yields mixed results. For instance, Trivedi’s sense of caste superiority and his Islamophobia triggered by propaganda against the Tablighi Jamaat are both established effectively. However, none of the Muslims he targets is a clearly defined character. The absence of an identifiable Muslim individual towards whom his meanness is directed considerably lessens the impact of those scenes. Trivedi’s conduct evokes revulsion, but the writing is at pains to offset these aspects of his character by shortly afterwards building him into a crusader for good, the leader of a rebellion at Surya’s check-post. This review is certainly not a call to paint any character in black or white alone. Not at all. But the characterisation of this man feels like a balancing act.

The writers are also unable to see Surya and Renu as just people, and instead view them almost solely through the lens of their respective caste identities. In their first scene together, the couple discuss the social disparity between them, and Surya repeatedly addresses her throughout as “Renu Sharma” and “Sharmaji”. We get it, her surname is Brahmin – the point is conveyed too self-consciously.

That said, Bheed is notable for being that rare contemporary, mainstream Hindi film to foreground caste (Sinha’s own Article 15 being another exception in this respect). It is also gutsy for Bheed to show a Dalit man and Brahmin woman in love, considering the circumstances in today’s India. A liaison between a man from a marginalised caste and an upper caste woman is far more likely to spark outrage and violence in the real world than a gender role reversal, because patriarchal societies view women as repositories of community honour and property that is passed on to their husband’s community after marriage. Bheed sticks its neck out in this matter.

Surya’s line to Renu, “Justice is always in the hands of the powerful, Sharmaji. If the powerless served justice, then justice would be different,” is well made. His hurt and anger at the humiliation he is subjected to despite his position of authority are also put across well. However, the alliance he forms just minutes later with the repugnantly casteist individual who demeaned him is unconvincing, and the conversation he has with his boss about wanting to be a hero is written clumsily. He also seems to need his upper-caste girlfriend’s guidance and/or goading every step of the way to become the man he wants to be – in bed and at work. In this aspect, especially, I missed the writing (by Gaurav Solanki and Sinha himself) of the clear-headed underground Dalit resistance leader Nishad in Article 15 .

Initially, Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao play off each other rather nicely, but after a while, their conversations are weighed down by a singular fixation on caste.

The absolute trough in the script though is the portrayal of the star journalist whose bleary dialogues are written like lines from a PhD thesis.

Where the script shines is in the writing of Geetanjali and Kanhaiya, the memsaab’s blinkered comments to her driver that could only come from a person who is completely oblivious to her extreme privilege and his lack of choice, and the warmth between them despite her I-me-myself approach to their equation. She is not painted as the devil incarnate and he is not romanticised as a saint, which is the most effective lead-up you could have to that crackerjack moment when a spontaneous act of kindness by Kanhaiya suddenly makes her aware of how incredibly self-centred she was being. Dia Mirza and Sushil Pandey are excellent in their respective roles.

In a cast packed with proven talents, the other actor who stands out is Aditya Srivastava as Surya’s colleague Ram Singh. The writing really comes together in his characterisation, and Srivastava is delightful in the way he depicts his resentment towards Surya and his casteist sneering without slacking off at work.

Since 2018, Anubhav Sinha has earned a reputation for questioning the establishment – the government, the religious majority, caste and patriarchy – through his films at a time when it has become dangerous to do so. Mulk , Article 15 , Thappad and Anek have each raised issues that commercial Hindi cinema usually does not. Anek was a misfire, but the rest were successful in generating important debates even among those who were not fond of them. Bheed lies somewhere in between. Cinematically, it shines only sporadically, but as a mark of defiance against a repressive regime, it is remarkable.

Rating: 2.75 (out of 5 stars)

This review was first published in March 2023 when Bheed was in theatres. The film is now streaming on Netflix.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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‘Bheed’ Is an Important, Powerful Film, But It’s Not the One We Were Promised

While the first trailer for the Anubhav Sinha-directed movie about lockdown in India was bold and political, the final cut is robbed of its courage

A poster for the Bollywood movie 'Bheed.'

Bheed (‘Crowd’)

Cast : Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Dia Mirza, Kritika Kamra, Aditya Srivastava, Veerendra Saxena

Direction : Anubhav Sinha

Rating : **1/2

Showing in theaters

When the first trailer of Bheed dropped on social media around March 10th, it created a lot of buzz and disbelief.

It began with a familiar voice — of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24th, 2020 — announcing a complete, 21-day, nationwide lockdown, giving India’s 140 crore citizens four hours’ notice to figure out their lives.

With that one sentence — “ Aaj raat, 12 baje se, poore desh mein sampoorn lockdown hone jaa raha hai ” — millions were rendered homeless, jobless, penniless. Without food, water, money and any assurance or assistance from the government, millions of people across cities and states started walking back to the villages they had come from.

The images that appeared on the screen along with the voiceover were of cops beating migrant workers.

There was something very deliberately bold, powerful and triggering about the trailer. These were not just random images of the overnight loss of a nation’s humanity. Director Abhinav Sinha ring-fenced the human tragedy which unfolded in 2020 by showing what caused it. The context was real and the harrowing scenes were part of India’s collective nightmare.

The trailer shook something inside.

Two friends texted me to say that they wept while watching Bheed ’s trailer, and both wondered whether the film will be allowed to release at all.

Then, the second trailer dropped. And like it is in real life these days, it showed a human tragedy without pinning responsibility.

While the earlier trailer belonged to a film about a very specific calamity triggered by a decision that had not been thought through by the government because it seemed to have no clue about the country they were governing, Bheed ’s new trailer seemed to belong to a different film — one that was about the many general ills of India. In this one, mass exodus and state brutality featured as if it were a result of a natural calamity, with the focus on how people behaved on-ground and not on how a decision taken at the top had a chilling effect.

And so it is the case with the film, which released in theaters on Friday after several cuts and a U/A censor certificate.

Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed is not a bad film. It’s a powerful, conscientious film that explores police brutality, class privilege, caste divide, religious mistrust, an apathetic state and its impact on the state machinery and the disempowered.

But it’s a film that has been robbed of its political and constitutional courage. And it’s not the film we were first promised.

Shot in black and white, Bheed is set at the checkpost of a small town called Tejpur and opens 13 days into the lockdown, with several headlines conveying the death, chaos and tragedy unfolding across the country: “16 die as train runs over tired migrants sleeping on tracks.”

In Tejpur, senior officer Yadavji (Ashutosh Rana) puts Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao) in charge of the main police chowki on the border. The orders are simple: No one is to be allowed in.

After spending an evening with his medical-student girlfriend Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), Tikas, along with his colleague Singh saab (Aditya Srivastava) and others, takes charge.

The police chowki on a kachha road seems to be set in some dusty dystopia. Surrounded by a vast expanse of fields, there’s just a small chai stall nearby, and a mall with its shutters down.

Several people who had set off for their homes begin arriving at the border. There are men, women, children, families in buses, trucks, tempos, cars, on cycles, and many with blistered feet, their chappals and will completely worn out. All are waiting to be allowed to cross the border and go home.

Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), a security guard who managed to hire a bus, is trying to take his extended family home, including his brother who has a high fever.

Also stuck at the border is a bus full of Muslims, a man related to an important, local politician and a woman (Dia Mirza) in an SUV, with her driver Kanaiya (Sushil Pandey) at the steering wheel. She is desperately trying to get to her daughter who is stranded at her hostel.

There’s also television reporter Vidhi Tripathi (Kritika Kamra) with cameraman Nasir Munir and a cynical photographer.

The crowd keeps swelling, the long queue of people, buses and cars now extending beyond the horizon.

At the checkpost, the task of the police is asked to just “manage” the situation. So there are announcements to wear masks, keep social distancing, and some basic testing of those with symptoms.

Posts on social media promise that the government is in a huddle and discussing what relief can be extended to the millions who are trying to get home. But the cops at the chowki haven’t received any fresh orders.

With no place to rest, no access to hospitals, food, water or bathrooms, but reports of Tablighi Jamaat spreading the virus, hostilities rise and desperation begins to turn into rage.

After a somewhat jarring thriller type of twist, Bheed ends exactly as every man-made tragedy ends in India: With a hat-tip to the resilience of the poor. Their ability to survive is celebrated, and their suffering is ignored.

This celebration of how quickly people in India move on, get on with their lives, this need to garland “sab changa si” status, means that no one is responsible and no one needs to be held accountable.

To me, this felt like a dissatisfying, wasted opportunity.

But that’s not Anubhav Sinha’s fault. His film has received at least 13 cuts, including the Prime Minister’s voiceover, and the comparison of the migration of migrant workers during lockdown to the 1947 Partition.

Given that, Bheed is an honest account of what happened when state borders were shut and is a brutal snapshot of an apathetic state and its machinery.

These days Anubhav Sinha takes up only difficult, contentious subjects and his style is often B-grade. Everything is loud, rousing, emotional and in-your-face.

He let go of this in his film Thappad , but the rest of his films, especially Mulk and Article 15 , are strong B-grade films. There is immediate power in that approach, but little lasting impact.

He has shot Bheed in black and white, which gives the film an artsy touch. The film has some powerful, moving scenes and poignant lines, and these may stay with you, but the film as a whole won’t stay with you after you’ve left the cinema hall.

Bheed focuses a lot on caste and caste-conflict. It shows how deep religious and caste prejudices run in India, how justice is just another stick of the powerful to beat the powerless with. There’s a point and purpose to this.

Written by Sinha Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain, Bheed wants to tell us that most of the men and women rendered homeless overnight were not just migrant workers, but people belonging to “lower” castes.

But the film assigns caste discrimination and the rage against it only to Rajkummar Rao’s character. In a rather interesting scene involving Tikas and Sharma, Bheed shows how much that can impact even the most intimate relations, though, ultimately, the film is not able to communicate its larger point very clearly.

But Rao, who carries Bheed on his shoulders, lifts the film with his very fine performance.

Ashutosh Rana is restrained and very good, Aditya Srivastava is quite fabulous, but Pankaj Kapur was a bit disappointing because of the way his role and lines were written.

But a bigger disappointment for me was Bhumi Pednekar, who seems to have settled into a routine where she is a moonh-phat ladki who calls a spade a spade and grabs her desire by the collar. We’ve seen this before, often, and it’s now beginning to flatline.

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Bheed Review: RajKummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar starrer is a riveting lockdown drama that depicts India’s class difference

Gretel Sequeira

March 24, 2023

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Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the film Bheed was released in theatres on March 24. Read the review of the movie starring RajKummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, and Kritika Kamra.

Bubble Reviews
Bheed Review: RajKummar Rao an ...

bheed review, rajkummar rao, bhumi pednekar,

Film: Bheed

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Star cast: RajKummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana and Kritika Kamra.

Platform: Theatres

Bollywood Bubble ratings: 4 stars

Bheed Movie review

Over two years ago, in the blink of an eye, lots changed, for many families. After a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was announced, several struggled to make ends meet, travel back home and feed their families. While the world saw many dying due to the virus, India, in its rural and under developed regions, saw a much bigger problem. The death toll due to unforeseen reasons than the pandemic, was unnerving. With Bheed, Anubhav Sinha highlights the struggles of the common man and India’s class difference, in a way that has not been told yet.

During and in the post-pandemic era, we have come across several movies and series that depict the struggle of the common man during the lockdown. However, Anubhav Sinha takes the struggle a notch higher with his black and white movie. Despite the lack of colour, Bheed shines with the protagonist being the ‘Aam admi’ entirely, and the antagonist being the society. It brings forward India’s age-old class difference and sheds light on the adversities the common man faced during the lockdown, while many of us enjoyed our time in the comforts of our home, preparing delectable dishes.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by RajKummar Rao (@rajkummar_rao)

Bheed opens with Manoj Bajpayee’s narration. The first scene starts with a group of 16 workers walking (some barefoot) on railway tracks that is leading them towards home. After a long day, walking in the heat for hours, the workers rest and sleep on the railway tracks, for the night. In a shocking turn of events, an express train runs over them, causing the brutal death of 16, including women and children.

The perfection in the depiction of the opening scene leaves you enthralled and sets the seriousness of the situation, right away.

With the opening scene, Anubhav Sinha sets the pace of the film. And, the opening scene works well in getting you hooked. The plot of the movie starts to unfold with a scene where migrants are gathered in groups, at the Delhi state border, in the hope of crossing the state border and head home.

The film brings forward the stories of a duty in-charge (RajKummar Rao), who is fighting against casteism, despite being on a higher authority position, falling in love with a girl (Bhumi Pednekar), the doctor in-charge, a security guard, a purohit by caste, finding it difficult to understand how a lower caste can go up the ladder (Pankaj Kapur), a helpless mother (Dia Mirza), a officer who’s struggling to get his parents admitted due to COVID (Ashutosh Rana), a journalist (Kritika Kamra), and a girl who cycles her way home with her drunk father.

The plot of Bheed reminds you of the times when families struggled due to the partition. The times after they were forced to leave their homes and move to a new land to find shelter. The film’s plot revolves around the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown and highlights the major class difference in the country, communicating the struggles of the people to reach their respective homes and villages.

Star performances:

RajKummar Rao is Surya Kumar Singh Tikas, an officer in-charge, Bhumi Pednekar as a doctor in-charge and Dia Mirza as a helpless mother deliver a noteworthy performance. Pankaj Kapur, who makes an appearance as a security guard, seemingly does his best to lead his ‘gawwale’. He plays his character well and there is nothing to fault, with the veteran’s performance. Kritika Kamra plays a journalist in the film. And, Kamra put up a convincing act as an on-field reporter.

Sushil Pandey, who plays Dia Mirza’s driver in the film is hard to miss with his impactful performance. His performance adds depth to his loyal and humane character.

Throughout the movie, one can clearly understand how the filmmaker focuses on the ‘Bheed’ rather the stellar ensemble cast. He uses his stellar ensemble cast to help understand the class difference and struggle of the people.

Direction and Screenplay:

Anubhav Sinha, Soumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain do a great job when it comes to the plot of the film. A well-knitted plot and a proper execution of the screenplay makes the movie more real. What’s impressive is how the filmmaker adds depth to every character with hard-hitting dialogues. In terms of the music and background score, the rural songs help to express the emotions in the scenes.

Bheed solely focuses on the troubles that the lower class faced during the lockdown. With the movie, Anubhav Sinha brings forward that part of India you never knew about in news channels or the social media, during or after the lockdown. He treats you with jawbreaker scenes that manage to leave chills down your spine. Sinha makes it hard to spot flaws in this fiction turned reality.

Watch the trailer after the Bheed review :

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What is the release date of 'Bheed'? Release date of Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar starrer 'Bheed' is 2023-03-24.
Who are the actors in 'Bheed'? 'Bheed' star cast includes Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Virendra Saxena and Dia Mirza.
Who is the director of 'Bheed'? 'Bheed' is directed by Anubhav Sinha.
Who is the producer of 'Bheed'? 'Bheed' is produced by Bhushan Kumar,Anubhav Sinha.
What is Genre of 'Bheed'? 'Bheed' belongs to 'Drama' genre.
In Which Languages is 'Bheed' releasing? 'Bheed' is releasing in Hindi.

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Bheed Movie Review (2023)

24 Mar 2023

Anubhav Sinha's 'Bheed', based on pandemic-migration, is a solid addition to his series of social cinema.

Bheed Movie Cast & Crew

Anubhav Sinha's latest attempt at movie-making / conscience-pricking / dialogue-initiating is titled Bheed, and it gets going 13 days after the first pandemic-lockdown, when more migrants began walking back to their hometowns. Let's dwell, first, on that title, which refers to a crowd. "Bahut bheed hai," we say, when entering a crowded theatre or bus, but the bheed here refers to the billions that make up India. Yes, on the surface, the title is about the crowds of hapless migrants on the roads, but Anubhav always likes to zoom back a little from the issue in focus and talk a little more about the various aspects of our society, like caste and class. This is a film of metaphors and symbols. The action is set around a check post in Tejpur district, when states clamp down on their boundaries, refusing to let people enter or leave. That check post is the monolithic System through which we have to find ways to sneak through in order to live our lives.

Rajkummar Rao plays a cop who's the guardian of that check post – the "in-charge", as he is often called. The term is more than a little ironic because the man is a Dalit, and he is torn between being suppressed in the past and being the "oppressor" now. I use the word in quotes because he is only doing his job, which is to not allow the long line of people on the other side to pass through. Because I am currently watching The Last of Us, I was often reminded of a zombie-movie scenario. It's like a group of "humans" guarding themselves against a bheed of creatures baying for food. At one point, these poor migrants are actually referred to as animals. "They are creatures of the land," a chauffeur says. "They don't know how to swim. But because they are hungry, they keep coming back to the sea [symbolically, the vast cities]." The way the line is structured, the imagery it conjures up – it broke my heart.

Anubhav isn't beyond using Z-grade melodrama like showing a baby's face just before a train is going to mow down a bheed of migrants asleep on train tracks – but for the most part, he remains the objective, yet extraordinarily sympathetic, storyteller we have come to know from Mulk and Article 15. His programmatic design includes several "types" that make up this great nation of ours. We get a group of television reporters. We get a moneyed mother desperate to get her daughter back from a hostel (and she's even more desperate that her money isn't of help anymore). Dia Mirza plays this woman. I loved the scene where she thrusts some notes into a migrant's hands (the latter refuses), and yet, throws a fit when her chauffers gets down from the car to help this migrant. The character is a stand-in for all of us who throw money at a problem, but don't actually want to get our feet dirty and get down from our bubbles and do something to actually help others.

Like in Article 15, Anubhav uses a slushy river as a metaphor. This is where the migrant stumbles and needs help, and this is where the moneyed woman refuses to help, screaming at her chauffer while he gets down to help. (If you remember Article 15, the privileged protagonist has to descend into the slushy swamp that is the "real India" before he earns the right to save the girl.) Some of the lines may be too direct, like when the Dia Mirza character says that her chauffer, unlike her, never complains about having a headache, and he replies that he is used to it. But the way the scene is set up and staged – plus, the roiling vat of guilt Anubhav's films throw us into – make these misgivings go away easily. The black-and-white cinematography helps. It gives us a bit of distance, like witnessing another world, even as the narrative embroils us within it.

Some of the sidebars are truly horrifying to watch, like the visual of people hidden in a cement mixer. (Lords of Lockdown, a documentary by Mihir Fadnavis, would make a good companion piece to Bheed. It chronicles six months of the pandemic-lockdown.) Pankaj Kapoor plays a security guard who's anti-Muslum and holds his caste pride close to his heart. Does this description make him sound one-dimensional, a caricature designed to make easy points? But this man transforms into 3D as the film progresses. Even behind his "faults", we slowly begin to see a human being. We begin to see that his father used to draw up astrological charts to predict other people's futures, and what an irony that he could not predict his own son's current predicament! When this character enters a mall, looking for food, the emptiness – the lack of bheed-ness – of the location looks obsence. All this space going waste when the people outside are dying of hunger in the heat! At the end, when he asks what he did wrong to end up in this situation, the Rajkummar Rao character throws the line right back at him, bringing up his oppresssion over generations. What wrong did he and his people do!

Every performance is on point, and it helps that the screenplay gives each character personal as well as political moments – and thus, Anubhav is able to weave in a love interest in the form of the doctor played by Bhumi Pednekar. Thanks to her, Rajkummar Rao's butt defines his character as much as his beliefs. Though Rajkummar Rao plays the nominal protagonist and gets a small character-growth arc, this is a film that belongs to everyone, the bheed. By setting up conflicts between sets of characters, Bheed becomes a kind of mosaic of issues – and Anubhav, wisely, does not try to make too much of a point. He is not trying to cover the plight of migrants during the pandemic. He is putting a microscope on this particular situation at this particular check post. He does not try to "solve" anything, and even the end is just a temporary peace, a small white flag that ends hostilities for a while. The story in this movie is still going on.

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National Award-winning film critic Baradwaj Rangan, former deputy editor of The Hindu and senior editor of Film Companion, has carved a niche for himself over the years as a powerful voice in cinema, especially the Tamil film industry, with his reviews of films. While he was pursuing his chemical engineering degree, he was fascinated with the writing and analysis of world cinema by American critics. Baradwaj completed his Master’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations through scholarship. His first review was for the Hindi film Dum, published on January 30, 2003, in the Madras Plus supplement of The Economic Times. He then started critiquing Tamil films in 2014 and did a review on the film Subramaniapuram, while also debuting as a writer in the unreleased rom-com Kadhal 2 Kalyanam. Furthermore, Baradwaj has authored two books - Conversations with Mani Ratnam, 2012, and A Journey Through Indian Cinema, 2014. In 2017, he joined Film Companion South and continued to show his prowess in critiquing for the next five years garnering a wide viewership and a fan following of his own before announcing to be a part of Galatta Media in March 2022.

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Bheed Movie Review

Bheed Devesh Sharma , Mar 24, 2023, 14:04 IST

	Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur, Kritika Kamra, Aditya Shrivastav, Veerendra Saxena
	Anubhav Sinha
	Drama
	1

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Bheed review: The plight of migrant workers deserved a better film

Much like Anubhav Sinha’s previous film ‘Anek’, 'Bheed' also got an important story to tell but suffers due to the muddled treatment.

Published:Mar 25, 2023

Anubhav Sinha's 'Bheed' movie is set against the backdrop of Covid-19 lockdowns in India. (Twitter)

The muddled treatment fails it!

Bheed (Hindi)

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Pankaj Kapoor, Kritika Kamra, and Ashtoush Rana
Writer-Director: Anubav Sinha
Producer: Beneras Media works
Music: Anurag Saikia
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes
Cast: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Emraan Hashmi, and Revathy
Director: Maneesh Sharma
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Runtime: 2 hours 35 minutes

Starting from 2018’s Mulk (Region or Country), Anubhav Sinha has repeatedly chosen issues that are important to society.

In Mulk , he successfully addressed the prejudices that Muslims are facing in our society, through the character of a respected Muslim patriarch played by the late Rishi Kapoor.

In Article 15 (2019), the topic was the horrors of caste discrimination. Ayushmann Khurrana played Ayan Ranjan, a police officer from society’s upper crust. He had no idea about the various caste divisions.

Article 15 was followed by an equally powerful Thappad (Slap) in 2020 which looked at the consequences of a slap by the husband in a momentary fit of anger.

pankaj kapoor, rajkummar rao, anubhav sinha

Pankaj Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, and Anubhav Sinha in a workinn still from ‘Bheed’. (Twitter)

Thappad made a powerful statement on how it isn’t okay for a husband to slap his wife.

All the above-mentioned films positioned Anubhav Sinha as a director with a strong progressive voice.

However, the director saw a downfall with Anek where he focused his lens on the strained relationship between the government and the separatist groups in the North East.

Despite the powerful subject, he floundered big time. Unfortunately, the same has happened with his latest – Bheed (Crowd).

There are passages in the film that keep the audiences completely hooked particularly the ones featuring Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Kapoor. But the film tries to address too many things at the same time. As a result, it never comes across as a comprehensive whole.

India’s pandemic exodus

Bheed begins with the shocking scene of the real-life incident of 16 migrant workers who were run over by a train. This sets the mood for the drama that follows. The film has been shot in black and white by cinematographer Soumik Mukherjee.

After the horrific death scene, we move to Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (Rajkummar Rao). Surya, a young cop, is appointed as in in-charge of a check-post at one of the state borders. This check-post has been closed due to Covid.

Also Read: Purusha Pretham movie review

Surya’s girlfriend is an upper-class girl Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar). She is a doctor who treats patients who are stranded at the check-post.

A poster of ‘Bheed’ Hindi movie. (Twitter)

Aditya Shrivastava plays Surya’s subordinate who doesn’t like the latter much but has no other option other than to take orders from him.

On the other side of the barricade, you have the characters played by Dia Mirza and Pankaj Kapoor, among others.

Dia Mirza comes from a privileged class. She is a desperate mother who wants to cross the border to take her daughter back home. Her need is such that she doesn’t mind offering money to the in-charge officer.

Pankaj Kapoor plays watchman Balram Trivedi who also wants to return home from the city, much like his fellow friends and workers.

They arrive at the Tejpur border which is 1200 km from Delhi. However, the border has been sealed now.

There is also a young girl carrying her alcoholic father on a bicycle. Amidst all this, Kritika Kamra plays a TV journalist named Vidhi Tripati. She is an idealistic journalist with a lot of passion.

Revealing anything more wouldn’t be right as this is a story that has many layers to it.

Bookings now open to witness the invisible story and one man’s courage to stand for humanity. Get your tickets now for #Bheed , releasing in cinemas this Friday. @anubhavsinha @RajkummarRao #PankajKapur @bhumipednekar @virendrasaxena @deespeak @ranaashutosh10 #AdityaSrivastava pic.twitter.com/N9IXF9JuIy — Kritika Kamra (@Kritika_Kamra) March 23, 2023

The caste angle

Before getting into the shortcomings, it is necessary to highlight what works well for the movie.

It is successful in highlighting the plight of migrant workers. The scenes of families walking barefoot for miles, hungry kids crying for food and the inability of the mothers leaves a lump in your throat.

Rajkummar Rao in a still from ‘Bheed’. (Twitter)

There are several other issues that the director tackles; chief among them is the issue of caste through Rajkummar Rao’s Surya Kumar Singh Tikas.

Surya is someone who hides his caste under the surname Singh because it is something that his father had done as well.

Surya Kumar feels happy to be the in-charge. But, at the same time, there is also a deep insecurity about his caste identity amidst the Sharmas and Tridevis.

Anubhav Sinha does a good job of fleshing out this character. Once again, Rajkummar Rao proves his versatility with his exceptional performance.

He is particularly good in a scene when he expresses his anguish and decides that he also wants to be a hero and not remain as part of the crowd ( Bheed ).

The prejudices related to Muslims

Another track worth mentioning in Bheed is that of Pankaj Kapoor’s Balram Trivedi. Though the character of Balram, Anubhav Sinha exposes the prejudices related to Muslims.

There is an important scene when Balram doesn’t allow his hungry companions to eat the food served by a Muslim man.

Also Read: Vellaripattanam movie review

Balram is someone who is filled with bigotry. But fortunately, the character is not one-dimensional.

Pankaj Kapoor is a vastly experienced actor who has given many terrific performances. Here too, he packs a punch whenever he is on screen. His confrontation scenes with Rajkummar Rao deserve a particular mention.

When borders of disparity divide, the song of humanity becomes the #Bheed ‘s uniting force. Listen to #HerailBa NOW https://t.co/6sHHSi58ky Music Composer and Producer: @AnuraagPsychaea Singer: Omprakash Yadav Lyricist: @sagarlyrics pic.twitter.com/ngiiASf0J9 — bhumi pednekar (@bhumipednekar) March 21, 2023

The shortcomings

There are many issues that Anubhav Sinha tackles through Bheed . The intentions are worth applauding but the film tries to address/ highlight too many things at the same time. As a result, it feels cluttered.

The love track, for example, doesn’t make any sense. It feels more suited for a romantic drama than an issue-based film like this. It would have been far better if Surya and Renu Sharma were portrayed as strangers who meet in this difficult period.

A poster of Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Bheed’. (Twitter)

There is also a forcefully inserted intimate scene between the duo. The conversations between Surya and Renu mostly don’t align with the genre of Bheed .

Bhumi is her usual feisty self but nothing is outstanding about her performance.

Kritika Kamra as an honest journalist has an impressive beginning. But, after a point, it is clear that the director has no idea about where to take the character.

Also Read: Sengalam web series review

The paradigm shift of journalism in those times is hardly touched upon.

Dia Mirza gets the most baked character in the ensemble. Her desperation to reach her daughter is painted in a rather insensitive manner.

A more nuanced characterisation was needed. Still, Dia does the best that she can do with this one-dimensional character.

Soumik Chatterjee’s black-and-white cinematography takes some time to get used to but it is an interesting experiment. There is no scope for songs in a film like Bheed but the composition of “ Herali Ba ” is quite powerful.

Bheed is a perfect example of how good intentions don’t always translate into powerful films.

(Views expressed are personal.)

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COMMENTS

Bheed
Bheed
Bheed Movie Review : A brave portrayal of the plight of migrant workers
Bheed Movie Review: Critics Rating: 3.5 stars, click to give your rating/review,Anubhav Sinha, in his cinematic portrayal of a certain phase of the pandemic, comes really close to
Bheed review: A lockdown tale that hits you hard
Bheed review: A lockdown tale that hits you hard | Bollywood
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Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 24, 2023. The actors merge with the film's physical space to absolute perfection and achieve phenomenal emotional depth. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 ...
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Bheed: Directed by Anubhav Sinha. With Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Kapur, Bhumi Pednekar, Aditya Srivastav. The toughest times people had to face just to reach their homes.
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Bheed (2023) : Movie Review - Anubhav Sinha's Bheed, starring Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, and Pankaj Kapur, is said to be based on the migration of labourers during the early days of lockdown in 2020. That's not true, though. There are many other factors here, from police morals to casteism, Hindu-Muslim hatred, upper-class negativity ...
Bheed Review: Rajkummar Rao And Pankaj Kapur Deliver Outstanding
Bheed is a hard-hitting film that, in addition to being an act of courage, is an urgent plea to the privileged to shed their habitual complacency. It shows how a calamity can batter a society ...
Bheed Review: Anubhav Sinha's Portrait of the ...
The first scene of the film is especially strange. It features something brutal - a tired family dozes off on a railway track at night; a train approaches - but plays out more like a parody of poverty. They look and converse like Raju Rastogi's black-and-white-film family members from 3 Idiots (2009).
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A group of Hindu security guards and their families, led by Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur), is suspicious of the Muslims, thinking of them as Covid super-spreaders. A well-heeled lady (Dia Mirza) in her ...
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The film hits too close to home and brings back painful memories from Covid days, says our review. Rajkummar Rao's Bheed is a lockdown thriller that follows the migrant workers trying to get back to their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
'Bheed' Review: A Poignant & Gripping Look Into Tragedy and Human Nature
Anubhav Sinha's film Bheed, stars Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, and Pankaj Kapur in lead roles. It showcases the horrors of the 2020 Lockdown, with a lens on the migrant crisis.
'Bheed' movie review: Anubhav Sinha's cry for social justice needs to
'Bheed' movie review: Anubhav Sinha's cry for social ...
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Bheed movie review: Filmmaking as an act of defiance. Anubhav Sinha's account of migrant workers' en masse return to their villages at the start of the pandemic is a basket of courage and convolutions in the writing of social divisions in the midst of a tragedy. Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Sushil Pandey, Aditya ...
Bheed movie review: A grim and necessary reminder of a recent tragedy
Bheed movie review: It is clear why it was tempting to use the analogy of the Partition, which Anubhav Sinha had to excise from the film. With the context missing, this well-intentioned film becomes less than its powerful moving parts. Rating: 2.5 out of 5. Written by Shubhra Gupta
'Bheed' Movie Review: Anubhav Sinha's Powerful Film is Not the One Promised
Bheed ('Crowd'). Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Ashutosh Rana, Dia Mirza, Kritika Kamra, Aditya Srivastava, Veerendra Saxena. Direction: Anubhav Sinha. Rating: **1/2. Showing in theaters. When the first trailer of Bheed dropped on social media around March 10th, it created a lot of buzz and disbelief.. It began with a familiar voice — of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ...
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Bheed Movie review Over two years ago, in the blink of an eye, lots changed, for many families. After a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was announced, several struggled to make ends meet, travel back ...
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Bheed Movie Review & Showtimes: Find details of Bheed along with its showtimes, movie review, trailer, teaser, full video songs, showtimes and cast. Rajkummar Rao,Bhumi Pednekar,Virendra Saxena ...
Bheed Hindi Movie Review, Rating and Verdict
Bheed Movie Review (2023) 24 Mar 2023; 2:04 Hrs ; Anubhav Sinha's 'Bheed', based on pandemic-migration, is a solid addition to his series of social cinema. ...
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Bollywood Movies; Bheed Movie Review; Bheed Movie Review. Follow On. Devesh Sharma Mar 24, 2023, 14:04 IST. Bheed Devesh Sharma, Mar 24, 2023, 14:04 IST. Average User Rating 3.1/5. Rate Movie 0/5.
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In Bheed, Anubhav revisits the horrors of March 2020, the early months of the pandemic when India went into lockdown. The sudden and near total shutting of t...
'Bheed' Hindi movie review
Bheed review: The plight of migrant workers deserved a better film. Much like Anubhav Sinha's previous film 'Anek', 'Bheed' also got an important story to tell but suffers due to the muddled treatment. By Prabhatha Rigobertha. Published:Mar 25, 2023. Anubhav Sinha's 'Bheed' movie is set against the backdrop of Covid-19 lockdowns in India.

Bheed movie review: Anubhav Sinha's lockdown tale is a difficult watch that hits you hard

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Bheed Review: RajKummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar starrer is a riveting lockdown drama that depicts India’s class difference

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Directed by Anubhav Sinha, the film Bheed was released in theatres on March 24. Read the review of the movie starring RajKummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza, and Kritika Kamra.

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