Mrs. Undercover
Director: Anushree Mehta
Year: 2023
Duration: 107 minutes
Music: Various
Rating: 6.0
It's not often
that you would call a serial killer film cute, but that is the case here.
More mild comedy than tense killer narrative, the film can't quite stay on
any one path. That is part of its charm but at the same makes it difficult
to know what to make of it. There are some really poor attempts to bring
in humor, but by the end I had to admit to myself that I enjoyed it though
not sure why. To me it felt like a Korean sassy girl comedy, but it came
right out of Bollywood and shot in Kolkata ie Calcutta. Our serial killer
(Sumeet Vyas) is a charmer - good looking and very presentable. But he hates
women - especially women who step outside of the traditional role of housewife,
home maker. Hates them a lot as he explains to them in conversational
tones before he kills them. In the first instance when on an internet date,
he calmly tells her he is going to kill her and he does by driving over her
on the road and then again and then again and then again. By that time, he
is sure she is dead. Then he posts a video of him killing her to the internet.
This is his sixteenth and a Special Force has been set up to catch him but
with no success and in fact all their agents have been murdered. They desperately
search their files for anyone left.
Across town Durga (Radhika Apte) is having
the same dream again in which she takes on a group of thugs and beats them
down with her martial arts skills. Then she falls out of bed and her husband
asks her if she is having that James Bond dream again. Yes. Durga is a housewife
with husband and child who gets no appreciation from her husband and also
has to take care of his aging parents who are going into early-stage dementia.
Then one day a man at the temple seems to be hitting on her and she gets
so annoyed so goes over to tell him to stop. Agent-91, we need you, he says.
What? We need you. Turns out Durga was trained as an agent 12-years before
and as a cover had to marry her dullard of a husband. Are you people crazy
- I have been waiting 12-years and now you come to me after I have a son.
"That was part of your cover. And sorry, we lost your record because of a
glitch,".
After much goofy persuading to her patriotism
and humanity, she agrees and goes after the killer and what do you know,
she really is James Bond. Not a lot of this makes any sense - there are hints
that this is just part of an Incel group who have infiltrated the police
but that is never fleshed out and the Special Force are idiots one minute
and quite competent the next. None of the humor is really funny except when
she re-trains herself with video games and playing with her son. Almost Stephen
Chow like in that bit. Pleasant would be the best term to describe this.
The film is saved primarily by Radhika who makes you believe both parts of
her life. It runs a modest (for Bollywood) 107 minutes with a few nice songs
that are well-inserted into the narrative. Directed by Anushree Mehta.
