Despatch Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Have you had an afternoon recently where you’ve managed to delude yourself into thinking for a brief bit that the world in fact is NOT going to crap? Reminded yourself there are things like fresh snow, puppies, babies learning to talk, and endless comedy show re-runs starring Tina Fey you can pay 500 rupees a month to watch?
But suddenly, galati se, you picked up your phone and before you know it, its 2 AM, and you’ve spent 14 hours doom scrolling between reading about Trump and Elon taking over the world, or some new Bollywood celebrity debasing themselves in front of a powerful politician, and you not only back to feeling bad, but possibly worse than you did 24 hours ago?
This is sort of what watching this Kanu Behl film felt like.
Set in 2012, Despatch revolves around crime reporter Joy Bag, an unhappily married man, trying to stay one step ahead of the threat of digitization in news. Joy is largely disinterested in his job or colleagues, but 2 things happen which change that. A brazen daylight murder caught on CCTV camera, and a new digital editor Prerna. As he begins to pursue leads towards investigating this murder, he also starts a manipulative extra marital affair with Prerna, promising her a home, marriage, a family. Will he see either of these endeavors to fruition? Watch the film to find out.
Kanu Behl’s attempts at uncovering how people interact with each other when neither side holds any sort of real power, cocksure kings of tiny empires, have always been clearly visible in his work. More recently in Agra, a small family inheritance and minuscule real estate turn so many lives upside down, and people inside out. With Despatch, he focuses his lens toward Mumbai, a city constantly brimming with the promise of pointless human conflict, a million weird things occurring at any given moment. Through Joy Bag, a man who has seemingly been in the city his whole life, a grim exploration of media ethics unfolds, where power dynamics and urban survival, mixed within the crowded chaos of Mumbai, compels ambition to rub shoulders with desperation.
The film does not need to tell you that Joy is navigating a decaying profession. Watching this in 2024, with the knowledge that investigative journalism is not just on the decline but straight up finished in mainstream Indian press, gives everything a sad layer of dramatic irony from the get go. Kanu and writer Ishani Banerjee quickly make it clear — there WILL be no clean conclusions as no one knows what they’re getting into, least of all their protagonist. To highlight how much of a losing battle Joy is fighting, almost cruelly, sadistically, he is crafted as a truly terrible human being. Inexplicably three women lust after him, all three of whom he treats terribly, manipulates, and uses as outlets for his pent up frustrations. Shahana Goswami is utterly wasted as Shweta, Joy’s wife, who one day hates him, and another day like a mad woman wants to jump his bones. It’s a one note ‘hysterical woman’ part, that frankly belong in a much lesser film.
All the women in ‘Despatch’ are frenzied and easily fooled. The newspaper editor Prerna, played by Arrchita Agarwaal is strong one minute, and foolish another, believing Joy’s obvious lies. The issue is not her ditzy-ness, or the frankly violent sex she subjected to at the hands of her frustrated lover, it’s the inconsistency with which she is presented. An able performance, if not a particularly memorable one. Behl’s knack for portraying raw, uncomfortable human dynamics is evident through the women of this film, but the intimate moments between Joy and the three women, mostly serve grotesque cynicism rather than insight.
Some of the very obtuse “investigative” work Joy Bag does is designed to deliberately alienate the audience, challenging us to observe this morally murky protagonist without judgment. Sure he might be a terrible human, but LOOK at what he is up against! Teasing you, ki between the “third largest law firm” and “third largest newspaper”, knowing what we know today about freedom of press pata hai how things are going to go, and how much potential all of Joy’s work has to be proven pointless. The murkiness is deliberate, the onslaught of characters is lined up to confuse, frustrate, and ultimately relate with the bitterness of this journalist.
Despatch is a good “Mumbai film”. The city here isn’t a polished postcard of cinema and promise; it’s an urban sprawl, brimming with equal parts crime and grime. Dusty windows, loud honks, and fluorescent-lit warehouses. Behl and ace cinematographer Siddharth Diwan capture a city negotiating between survival and decay. The instantly recognizable floor tiles and kitchen walls of cramped Mumbai apartments, lend the film the authenticity that helps grounds the sprawling narrative unfolding in the newsroom. Duniya bhar se le aao kahaaniyan, aana yaheen hai waapas.
Despatch is drowning in nihilism, which I don’t mean as an indictment. It has many a question to ask: How can journalism fight capitalism when the latter owns the former? How can truth prevail when media houses are reduced to profit-driven enterprises? These questions however are posed with such excessive despair that you may finish the film not with clarity but with exhaustion. It may feel unsatisfying because it's not meant to satiate or provide catharsis, one might even say it’s defeatist. As expected, Manoj Bajpayee steers most of the movie on his able shoulders, and occasionally his bare bottom.
The film is streaming now on Zee 5.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Despatch is….. 2…G out of 3 GDRs. Ab dekho film, phir bataana.
Interestingly, a good companion piece to this is the Netflix series Scoop, same timelines, characters inspired by same real life people, if you want to continue following the story where Despatch ends, that’s where you can head!
