New Delhi:
two opening scenes dispatch Provide a foreshadowing of the complications that are about to arise in the life of crime reporter Joey Bag (Manoj Bajpayee). In the first, he returns home after a long day at work and finds wife Shweta (Shahana Goswami) partying with friends. One of the guests, drunk, tries to force-feed him pizza. Khushi suddenly breaks down and walks out of the house.
In the second sequence, the hero encounters a small-time gangster, whom he tries to capture and extract information from. The criminal has been caught by a policeman, but he has not killed the investigative journalist.
It’s clear that nothing is easy for the anxious newshound, whether at home or in the big world where he lives and works. Both are in a period of profound change. The changing media landscape depicts Joey on the verge of marriage.
As the business of news dissemination goes digital and his newspaper changes hands, the seasoned print media pro is determined not to let the change render him irrelevant. He is determined to produce two scoops at once – one relating to the broad daylight murder of a currency smuggler, the other relating to a scam involving a shadowy corporate entity.
On the personal front too, Joy is on the verge of taking a break from the past. His marriage is almost on the rocks – although wife Shweta has refused to give up – and he plans to move in with Prerna Prakash (Archita Aggarwal), his editorial associate on his upcoming book. But this is easier said than done. Divorce negotiations face inevitable challenges, as does his and his girlfriend’s search for an apartment.
Dispatch, directed by Kanu Bahl from a screenplay jointly written with Ishani Banerjee, is a slow-paced crime drama. It is also an extremely sharp character study. Its pace is a little heavy-handed, but its examination of the dynamics of news gathering in an environment tainted by greed and maliciousness is powerful and interesting.
In the process of investigating the nature and scope of the financial scam that Joy Bag seeks to expose, Dispatches also tackles corporate corruption, media collusion and the plight of a journalist with an uncompromising take on criminals big and small.
The tonally subdued Dispatch, produced by Ronnie Screwvala and streaming on ZEE5, has its share of cops and gangsters, but it focuses on issues that make it infinitely more complex than a typical neo-noir thriller. It doesn’t deliver the kind of bombast that Bahl’s Titli and Agra did, but it’s still a solid and candid examination of a profession in crisis and life in doldrums.
Joey, a flawed man in danger of being victimized by the observer, pursued by the pursuer, plunges with his eyes wide open into a murky world where knowing too much could lead to trouble. His happy years are behind him. The ecosystem in which it thrived has gone out of existence. What he sees, hears and learns in the course of duty is no longer a shield against danger to life and limb.
He discovers the puzzles that lie buried beneath layers of lies and lies, but becomes trapped in even deeper confusion and chaos. When warned that he may have bitten off more than he can chew, he says, “I’m a vacuous journalist.”
Joy’s weak, helpless protest is reminiscent of another era in which the line separating an impartial reporter from an active participant was far more clear.
In his effort to expose the mysterious owner of a shadowy corporate entity, he enlists the help of single mother, Noori Rai (Ri Sen); Joe has evolved into a staunch, free-spirited journalist with deep contacts in the underworld.
Joy needs all the help she can get as she goes up against secret tapes and stolen files, telecom spectrum and T20 cricket league scams, networks of shell companies in tax havens and high-profile fugitives operating from their bases in different parts of India. Of the World.
In this universe, information is the strongest currency, an infallible source of power. But the balance has shifted far away from those who seek to understand the narrative for the common good, to those who control it for personal gain.
The film explores a journalist’s search for truth and the impact of the reality he is, knowingly or unknowingly, a part of. In this respect, Dispatch is no different from Bahl’s previous two films. Titli examines the effects of unbalanced urban expansion on a family looking for ways to survive on the edge of an ever-expanding city.
Agra deals with a young man’s difficult search for his own place in a hostile environment. Joy Bag’s struggle is also for space but in a symbolic sense. In the criminal underworld of Mumbai, whose misdeeds he has covered for years, he works hard to retain what he has earned through a lifetime of work.
Bajpayee, a master of the art of restraint, is as strong an anchor as any film has ever had. His performance is impeccable. It is measured to perfection, down to the smallest expressions and gestures. Playing a conflicted man whose personal life is as complicated as his stories, he brings across a man who surprises, intrigues and evokes sympathy.
Shahana Goswami as the journalist’s estranged wife, Archita Agarwal as his love interest and Rii Sen as an investigative journalist who lives life on her own terms give brilliant supporting performances that highlight the innate strengths and failings of the male protagonist. Work to expose.
Joy’s life situation as well as the film’s point of view is best explained by a shot of her through a glass partition. We see him and his shadow as a wavering, almost opaque mist on the wall behind him. In this particular moment of Dispatch, Siddharth Dewan’s camera does exactly what the director wants to do with the entire film.
Bahl has crafted the film in such a way that it fails to clearly convey Joy’s compulsions, difficulties and impulses. And this, more than anything else, makes The Dispatch a masterful history of the prediction of a slow death – about a timid man and the brand of journalism on which he has built his career.
If you have seen the mischief caused by Pushpa, then Dispatch is the film for you.
