REVIEW LAW (Kannada)

Producer-Ashwini  Puneet  Rajkumar and M Govinda

Director- Raghu Samarth

Star Cast- Ragini Prajwal, Siri Prahlad, Mukhyamantri Chandru, Mandya Ramesh, Hebbale Krishna,  Avinash, Sudharani and Achyuth Kumar and Rajesh Nataranga

Genre- Social

Rating- **1/2

Illogical but Engrossing!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Law is the first Kannada film to take the streaming route via Amazon Prime Video during the pandemic. The film revolves around the trials and tribulations of a young law student Nandini Vardhan(Ragini Prajwal), who is a “victim” to a heinous gang rape. Like Ponmagal Vandhal, the first Tamil film to have a direct release on Amazon Prime Video, Law too has a rape survivor who argues her own case in court. 

Nandini is bent upon fighting the case and seek justice, even though her father and most people do not think it is advisable for a woman to speak openly about her being a gang rape victim. And obviously, when she does, there are several stumbling roadblocks that she has to face all through her mission. The film on the whole, is an intelligently crafted novel and organic take on her fight for justice.

Though you sit upright when the film unfolds crisply with a girl running away in a deserted road at night from Kamalesh Lad, Bhandari & Kanthi Kotwal whose parents are politicians & powerful, who have raped her, towards a cooing couple seated in a car and seeking the help of its occupants and feel that the mood is set in the unfolding of the film, you are in disappointment as the story unfolds entirely into something different baffling you out of your wits.

There are umpteen stories that involve crime and investigations. Sometimes, the case even gets dismissed due to lack of evidence and the accused are set free. Law  is a paradigm shift from the rest in this genre, since it is about how a law student actually fights for justice following a gruesome gang rape of her guru’s (Achyut Kumar) innocent daughter Dashami (Siri Prahlad) who dies in ICU and also set out to kill her guru Jagadish when he decides to fight for his daughter but falsify the evidences as suicide.

The plot of the well crafted film makes you engrossed in the film with its twists and turns but the proceedings at times as well as the climax seem to be too illogical and leaves a lot to be desired, though commendable. As the protagonist, Ragini Prajwal is excellent as far as her performance is concerned while mention ought to also be made of Hebbale Krishna who is playing the role of Parthasarathi Brahma of the Crime Branch, with a very casual stance. Mandya Ramesh irritates with his loud acting and comical approach

It beats one’s intelligence to digest how on earth the DNA samples can be submitted in the court when in the first place Brahma does not even succeed in zeroing in on the three influential accused but very conveniently decides that they are the culprits The scene between Mukhyamantri Chandru as the judge and his wife, who calls him on his phone while he’s in court listening to the arguments in the gang rape case, just doesn’t at all contribute in any way to enhancing the screenplay  nor is it comical in any way.

To sum up, Law is different from other crime thrillers and is engrossing with its two hour long run