REVIEW SCOTLAND

Producer- Zainia Ibourek and Manish Vatssalya

Director- Manish Vatssalya

Star Cast- Adam Saini, Khushboo Purohit, Chetan Pandit, Daya Shankar Pandey, Samar Katyaan, Aakash Dagar, Shahbaz Khan , Amin Gazi and Manish Vatssalya

Genre-Vendetta

Rating-**1/2

PREDICTABLE BUT ENGROSSING!

Jyothi Venkatesh

A thoroughly spoilt only daughter Tanya Diwan (Khushboo Purohit) has been sexually assaulted by four thugs. The courts acquit the defendants and so the grieving doctor-father Dr Brij Diwan (Adam Saini) decides to take justice into his own hands in a premeditated revenge plot that has a price of its own. Doesn’t sound anything spectacularly novel? Isn’t it, But the only saving grace of the film is the way director Manish Vatsalya has tackled it, without making you feel bored, in spite of the fact that there is no element of novelty and the subject is as stale as yesterday’s pav bhaji.

Performances wise, Adam Saini an ex-Scottish cop making his debut in the Indo-UK production, gives a restrained and promising job in the lead as the doctor father of the rape victim but Khushboo Purohit deserves kudos for getting into her character as the rape victim daughter Tanya Diwan and emoting in the latter half of the film without even dialogues to enhance her performance. By the way, Khsuhboo Purohit is a much-celebrated former contestant of popular reality show ‘Dance India Dance’ too. Chetan Pandit , who is known for his commendable work in movies like A Wednesday and Dilwale is good as Balvir Shelar the M.L.A who is the father of the rapist sons while Daya Shankar Pandey stands out as the ‘vibhishan’ of the drama. Manish Vatssalya endears himself to the viewers as the practical justice oriented ACP Dukhharan Singh

The subject is handicapped by an illogical screenplay which dithers in between though the film scores as far as the dialogues are concerned which are incisive and topical . It beats why the story is shown revolving around rapists who are found making an attempt to rape the household maid who is their own raakhi sister, after indulging in rave party in their own house during a pooja ceremony. The film also reminds you of the plot of Rajkumar Santoshi’s film Damini which also dealt with rape committed in a house. The movie also holds a special mention since the background score and songs have been sung by the multi-talented, Arijit Singh. The soulful song Mere Parvardigaar presents the melodious voice of Arijit Singh in lyrics so craftily penned by Rajiv Rana, in a way never heard by his countless fans. The film has been written by Piyush Priyank and edited by Mansoor Azmi.

The film Scotland which is being streamed on the App ShemarooMe from this Friday onwards, has been shortlisted as one of the Oscar contenders in the mainstream Best feature film category, which means it will be competing with the Hollywood biggies like Joker, The Irishman, ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood’ etc. to find a space for itself on this extraordinary platform.

To sum up, Scotland is predictable but nevertheless engrossing!