Agni movie is real story review in hindi: 2024

 Agni movie is real story review in hindi: 2024 

The movie real story are: 

Director: Rahul Dholakia

Writers: Rahul Dholakia, Vijay Maurya (dialogue)
Cast: Pratik Gandhi, Divyenndu, Jitendra Joshi, Saiyami Kher, Sai Tamhankar, Udit Arora
Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

                    THE MOVIE REAL STORY REVIEW 

 Agni revolves around Parel fire chief Vitthal Rao (Gandhi) and his close-knit team’s challenges in a city plagued by multiple blazes: restaurants, theatres, high-rises, even a student coaching center. It’s 2017, and there’s suddenly no respite for Vitthal, investigative officer Avni (Saiyami Kher) and divisional fire officer Mahadev (Jitendra Joshi), when a colleague dies (he becomes an obvious candidate the moment he smiles a lot) and it ruptures their work-fam bubble. The lack of representation of firefighting on Bollywood screens is nicely written into the plot: Vitthal’s department has a rivalry with their more recognised and celebrity-coded counterparts, the Mumbai Police. Vitthal is the honest working-class hero, barely appreciated by society and family; he shares a frosty equation with Samit (an effortless Divyenndu), his brother-in-law and a superstar cop. Samit is rich and cocky, almost as if he knows that his genre thrives on the glorification of police brutality and law enforcement. There are also the visual nods to the role of fire in everyday life — the morning routine of a superstitious officer who walks around the office with a puja thali; a wife praying for her husband’s safety at her little home temple; the lighting of a stove in a kitchen; a violent video-game. In other words, Agni is built to succeed. It has the starting aura of a Test cricket team that opts to bat first on a flat wicket.

Yet, the film inexplicably chooses the ‘accessible’ and reduced contours of the T20 game. It has everything except the right story. In shows like Mumbai Diaries, the writing does well to trust the presence of an intangible foe — the all-encompassing System which, in such cases, symbolises the fragile anatomy of the city. The citizens and unsung rescuers work despite the establishment; terrorist attacks and floods only accentuate the bureaucratic holes that already exist. Agni’s “Special Thanks” credit to the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) is not an issue; this is after all a production that focuses on the physicality of a teeming metropolis. But this prevents the film from being critical of things like infrastructure and disaster management — or even exploring the crisis of a place rigged against its spirited residents. It rules out themes like climate change, eco-terrorism, corporate conspiracy and institutional corruption. 9/11 changed Hollywood’s relationship with firefighter and first-responder stories, the pandemic altered the world’s gaze of medical thrillers, but a spontaneously combustible city like Mumbai needs no peg or historical event. Yet, you can sense the trepidation to blame those above the common man. At one point, Vitthal breaks into a sad monologue at the hospital: why is it always us firefighters who suffer for everyone’s lack of civic sense?

This is a sign that the film is looking for an actual villain. And this is where Agni douses its own spark. For one, the staging is incredibly corny. There is a twist, and there is an unhinged individual — a dramatic pitch no different from that of a killer in an Abbas-Mustan movie. There are shots of a pre-interval lair, a sweaty face, a tragic backstory, a mask reveal, and that notorious habit of a person acting deranged only after the revelation happens. Vitthal suspects that the fires are the crimes of an arsonist, while supercop Samit rubbishes his theory and arrests a big builder (without an inkling of political pressure) to close the case. Naturally, the screenplay goes out of its way to make Vitthal the underdog and prove his instincts correct. This means that much of the film rests on the identity and uncovering of this baddie. It’s a self-defeating path Agni chooses, so it’s best to judge the film through the lens of this choice.

Dubbed as “India’s first firefighter film” — Mammootty's Fireman (2015) enters the chat — Agni is ignited by the first-mover syndrome. It has a lot going for it. There’s the novelty of centering a story on the fire brigade, perhaps the only emergency services department yet to be dramatised by mainstream Hindi cinema. There’s the new visual language and mythology-coded scale of ‘fiery’ set pieces, backed by the slick production value and studio resources of Excel Entertainment. It marks National award-winning director Rahul Dholakia’s first outing since Raees (2017); it also features a solid ensemble cast led by Madgaon Express duo Pratik Gandhi and Divyenndu. And it’s set in Mumbai, with dialogue by Bambaiya specialist Vijay Maurya.

Soldiers and police officers have been lionised in many films.

Rahul Dholakia's Agni asks why firefighters, who also risk their lives to save people, are never given their due.

                       'Can you name a single firefighter?'   asks a disgruntled character in the film, and it's true. The layperson would not be able to because their live-saving work is taken for granted. As the story progresses, Rahul subverts our expectations into making the film run like a thriller, as it carries the pain and sacrifice of officers in the fire department. There is an effort to give a glimpse into their everyday life, making us eavesdrop on their anecdotes that are a commonplace in a government office setup like this.

At the same time, it becomes a sharp genre piece with newer things being uncovered that give it the feel of a 90s Hollywood cat-and-mouse chase.

It does get a bit tedious in some of the hastily-filmed, VFX-heavy fire scenes. Yet, the film’s delicately placed emotional highs make up for some of the visual chaos here. The writing connects personal conflicts to collective struggles, laying bare the systemic loopholes without being didactic. It leads finally into an evocative last act, signifying rather seamlessly how the state’s failure can turn well-meaning individuals into anarchists.

The film is enhanced further by the performances. It is Pratik Gandhi’s layered and restrained demeanour that takes us deeper into his character’s psyche.

Being the moral voice of the film, he doesn’t let it consume everything. Rather, it is the vulnerabilities that truly make him stronger. Conversely, it becomes difficult to buy Divyenndu as a cop. Jitendra Joshi delivers an inherently compelling performance that is equal parts visceral and haunting.

In Agni, there is neither any pretence of being insanely serious about the subject matter nor the superficial use of cinematic tools to manipulate emotions.

The music here doesn’t underline everything but only livens up the narrative. The dialogues become a gateway to engaging conversations. Everything comes together to further accentuate the themes. Ultimately, its triumph lies in going back to the basics.   

                                                                                                                                                                                    New Delhi:

Soldiers, cops and gangsters are well-ensconced in Hindi cinema's consciousness. But firefighters have never made it beyond a stray mention here or a passing reference there in Mumbai movies. Agni, writer-director Rahul Dholakia's first film in seven years, is an emphatic departure from the norm.

Produced by Excel Entertainment and streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Agni is a consistently watchable thriller that not only gives firefighters their due but also redefines the notions of heroism that are perpetuated by conventional action movies.

It delivers thrills and drama in ample measure without having to take recourse to blazing gunfights and heart-pounding chases. The film's intensity and impact are marked by a quiet, coiled-up quality. The dialogue written by Vijay Maurya lends Agni a timbre that is firmly rooted in the world in which it plays out.

Instead of gun-wielding heroes and villains, or glib-talking encounter specialists and super sleuths, Dholakia's screenplay trains the spotlight on those who save lives or sacrifice theirs in the line of duty. These aren't armed men. They fight infernos with hosepipes.

But the film isn't only about the sorties that firefighters make. It is equally concerned with the emotional and psychological toll that the battles with monster blazes take on people in the thick of the action and their families.

With all the authenticity that it can pack into a story rooted in fiction but backed by research, Agni explores the emotions, frustrations and misgivings that inevitably come into play in severely fraught situations that call for split-second decisions. The frequently tragic aftermath of the brave actions of the firefighters constitutes a crucial part of the narrative.

The Pratik Gandhi-led film is a tribute to, and a celebration of, men and women who perform a dangerous job in complete anonymity day in and day out and receive little recompense from those that they serve or save. Showcasing their unsung heroism, Agni seeks to show the audience what courage under fire really looks like.

One of the key characters in Agni is a police officer, Samit Sawant (Divyenndu), who calls his team Avengers, but the story is principally about firefighter Vitthal Rao Surve (Gandhi) and how he deals with his vocation and the challenges around and beyond it.

A significant strand of the film revolves around Surve's son Amar (Kabir Shah), who idolises Sawant and thinks nothing of what his 'unglamorous' dad does for a living. For the boy, the much-feted policeman is a real hero.

The contrast between law and order and firefighters' calling is repeatedly underscored in Agni. In a party sequence, Surve cracks a stinging joke at the expense of the police when one of Sawant's men ridicules firefighters as a tribe. There is obviously little love lost between the two groups of professionals.

Beyond the father-son relationship and the frosty equations between Samit Sawant and Vitthal Surve, the film explores larger personal and public issues that the firefighters confront as they go about their lives and jobs.

Medal chhor medical bhi nahin dete (forget medals, they do not even give us a medical allowance), veteran fireman Mahadev (Jitendra Joshi) laments in the course of a heart-to-heart with a drinking mate Surve.

Surve and Sawant, temperamentally dissimilar men, are related to each other. Senior Inspector Sawant's sister Rukmini (Sai Tamhankar) is Surve's wife. They inhabit parallel universes that begin to intertwine with each other when Mumbai is hit by a series of fires.

While the chief of the Parel Fire Station and his team battle blazes that are reported in quick succession from around the city - a busy restaurant, a residential building, a coaching centre and a garment factory are among the affected sites - Sawant and his men are deployed by the city administration to investigate the incidents.

The fire department, too, has its own internal probe officer, Avni Purohit (Saiyami Kher). She stumbles upon a bunch of violations of safety rules. She suspects sabotage and arson. However, no matter how diligently she tries to gather proof, a wall blocks her way.

Is a pyromaniac on the prowl? Is an unscrupulous builder out to raze existing structures in order to further his real estate business? Or are the fires mere accidents? Neither the police nor the Department of Fire has the answer. The search for the truth is riddled with imponderables.

Avni's love interest, fellow firefighter Joseph "Jazz" Castellino (Udit Arora), provides an added dimension to the plot. The romantic thread that the relationship contributes to the film serves to strengthen its core argument about the perils of the profession.

Agni delivers an unexpected twist in the lead-up to the climax that puts in perspective the anger, disillusionment and helplessness that hounds men who put their lives on the line to keep the city safe.

Jwale mein jo jeete hain woh amar ho jaate hain (those who exist in the midst of fire attain immortality), says a disembodied voice in the film's opening moments. The irony is stark. That line is repeated in the film's final act to provide a context for the thanklessness of the firefighter's job

The unconventionality of Agni as an action film springs primarily from the kind of man that Vitthal Surve is. He is shorn of the sort of masculinity that Hindi movie heroes are usually endowed with. He is frail but tough. He has weak lungs that often act up.

Surve is often precariously short of breath - a condition that makes him vulnerable when he has to barge into smoke-filled buildings and take on raging fires. But the gritty man's spirit never flags. He labours on regardless.

Pratik Gandhi carries the film on his shoulders without letting the burden show. Divyenndu does not get his share of the action until the fag-end of the film but the role gives him enough leeway to make an impression. Among the others in the cast, Saiyami Kher and Jitendra Joshi stand out.