Radhika Apte in Mrs Undercover. (courtesy: radhikaofficial)

Cast: Radhika Apte, Sumeet Vyas, Angana Roy, Rajesh Sharma

Director: Anushree Mehta

Rating: One star (out of 5)

A fluffy flick that leaves all of the heavy lifting to Radhika Apte, Mrs Undercover wilts underneath the load of its misdirected frivolity. The movie aspires to be humorous. It additionally needs to ship a message. All that it manages to do is tie itself up in knots. Mrs Undercover has ‘run for canopy’ written throughout it.

The lead actress performs a docile, dutiful homemaker with an ‘undercover’ previous that catches up together with her when a serial killer goes on the prowl on the streets of Kolkata and singles out independent-minded girls to brutalise.

The man’s murderous rage takes a excessive toll and leaves town cops fully clueless. The heroine is compelled by her erstwhile secret service company boss to place her family chores on maintain and don the cloak of the skilled agent that she was earlier than she settled into domesticity a decade in the past.

Directed by Anushree Mehta with a script collectively written by her and Abir Sengupta, Mrs Undercover would have been infinitely higher off had it stayed on paper. The completed movie, streaming on Zee5, is a totally muddled job that bumbles its means by way of spy comedy territory with the intention of extolling the ability of a lady who’s “just a housewife”.

The message is exasperatingly hole. The medium is infinitely worse. The double lifetime of Durga is neither humorous nor significant. As Mrs Undercover beats concerning the bush, it beats the stuffing out of any actual probability that Mrs Durga Das – the character Apte portrays – might need had of constructing an affect on the world round her.

Durga’s reluctant return to her outdated job as a particular agent is hilarious for all of the mistaken causes. Like the movie, she goes by way of the ungainly motions. Apte makes recreation efforts to breathe life into the half-baked character. She is thwarted by the sloppy writing and the gallingly restricted character arc.

None of key figures within the movie, and this contains the titular protagonist, is ready to combat off the ludicrously far-fetched premise and evolve right into a plausible character.

Mrs Undercover wastes no time in establishing its setting. It opens with an evening shot of Howrah Bridge throughout the Hooghly earlier than it strikes right into a abandoned restaurant the place a feminine lawyer (Amrita Chattopadhyay in a particular look) awaits the arrival of her date for the night.

She has simply gained a divorce case and received a person convicted for home violence. She is simply the kind of lady that may elevate the serial killer’s hackles. When the person does get there a couple of minutes late, his preliminary manner is innocuous sufficient. But he doesn’t waste a lot time to unleash his simmering wrath. The lady finally ends up lifeless.

That is a surprising opening all proper, however nothing that follows the brutal killing, together with the actions of a particular power skilled to sort out terrorists and psychopaths, can shore up the sinking movie.

Women deserve significantly better than what this movie has in retailer for them. Inept and devoid of creativeness, Mrs Undercover is worse than a misfire. It is a gun with out a bullet. It stutters and sputters its method to a grotesque, hopelessly clunky climax.

You are only a housewife, the amiable mother-wife-daughter-in-law is repeatedly advised, particularly by her feckless husband, Deb Das (Shaheb Chatterjee). He thinks Durga has no proper to refuse to do his bidding. He walks right into a entice that places his life – and marriage – at grave threat however he doesn’t possess the acumen to see the place he’s headed.

Durga’s former handler, Chief Rangeela (Rajesh Sharma), who’s much more of an odious oaf than her hubby, needs her to return to the thick of the motion as a result of her title doesn’t exist within the data of the particular power that she was as soon as part of and may, subsequently, go about her sleuthing job with out attracting undue consideration to the mission.

Her husband owns what seems to be like a store that sells antiques. His views on girls, too, are antiquated. His mom (Laboni Sarkar) – Durga’s mom-in-law – is way extra progressive and encourages her to do no matter her coronary heart needs. When she does soar into the fray, we all know precisely how issues will prove for her and the person she is in pursuit of.

With a contrived plot severely limiting her choices, Durga doesn’t need to do any chasing in any respect as a result of the movie doesn’t imagine in conserving any secrets and techniques from the viewers. The serial killer hides in plain sight. His id is not the focal point. The vacuous plot centres squarely on the method of Durga’s facile transformation, which is neither convincing nor notably thrilling.

Apte, who performed a real-life World War II undercover agent with distinction within the 2019 spy drama A Call to Spy, receives not one of the assist that an actor would require to benefit from an out-of-her-comfort-zone motion heroine position meant to energy all the movie.