Laal Kaptaan is a vengeance drama desperately banking on tumult and mystery

Saif Ali Khan-starrer Laal Kaptaan is a period vengeance drama desperately banking on tumult and mystery, finds Nikita Puri

There are some brief moments in Laal Kaptaan when one begins to wonder if the film is actually a Western, given all the gun-toting men riding on horseback across hilly ravines. But then Saif Ali Khan reappears on the screen with long dreadlocks. And then one notices his perfectly-groomed beard, which seems like a subtle advertisement for men’s grooming products. All-organic products, of course, because Khan’s character is essentially that of a Naga sadhu.

Traditionally, Naga sadhus are Hindu ascetics best seen today in all their ash-smeared glory during the Kumbh Mela, but director Navdeep Singh’s Laal Kaptaan takes place well over 200 years ago, when all of Hindustan was a battleground and the British East India Company was stockpiling victories. Singh’s movie has a lot of players: there are the Marathas, the Rohillas (Pashtuns), the English and the Naga sadhus, besides others. And among all these people is our protagonist, Khan, who is referred to in the film mostly as “Gosain,” a reference to Shiva’s devotees. Khan’s character is out for vengeance, but we know not why, and that’s what the film tells us as we follow him follow others who have wronged him.

We’ve never seen a swashbuckling Naga sadhu out for revenge before, but the question is: is that in itself reason enough to head out to a theatre?  

It’s hard to pin down what aesthetics the makers of the film wanted their leading man to espouse. Now, Khan is lunging across movie screens in a getup best described as an unholy matrimony of protagonists from Pirates of the Caribbean (minus the high seas) and  The Lone Ranger (hello, Western film). And let’s not forget that our Naga sadhu, who routinely smears ash on his face when he isn’t wielding swords, goes about dressed in the clothes of an officer of the East India Company. The tell-tale red coat he dons is most likely the inspiration to the movie’s name. We couldn’t find another explanation, or even why he wears what he wears. All we know for sure is that Khan won’t stop chasing a warlord called Rehmat Khan.

Rehmat Khan, played by Manav Vij, doesn’t even know why a Naga sadhu is hunting him and if he means any harm to his child or his Begum (Simone Singh). If the sadhu is waiting for some pre-destined moment or a cosmic sign to end his arch nemesis, we know not. The end, where all the plot twists come together, is frankly the best part of the movie.

Saif Ali Khan is reunited with his Omkara co-actor Deepak Dobriyal in Laal Kaptaan. Dobriyal plays an eccentric tracker whose livelihood depends on his nasal prowess to smell people out. He sniffs his way into the life of our wandering-but-not-lost sadhu and the duo exchange some worldly gyan slash memorable one-liners (depending on the beholder). Though, to be fair, the movie is rather well peppered with nuggets of wisdom. (One kept waiting for some Kabir ke dohe but unfortunately Kabir was two centuries apart from the time period of our protagonist.) Besides the dashing one-liners, the film should be acknowledged for its cinematography.

At times it drags its feet like a parched traveller who has lost his way in the unforgiving desert. The chase and the letting go, followed by some more chasing and escaping, seem stretched out. This is when one realises that online streaming platforms, with fast rewind and fast forward options, have ruined us for good.

The film has an assassin, horses, camels, caravans and treasure, even bullets and balls of fire besides plot twists, but it still doesn’t come together. Fans of Saif Ali Khan, this one’s largely for you.