At one point in Anubhav Sinha’s Assi, a father (Manoj Pahwa) and his son (Abhishant Rana) are devouring a plate of chhole bhature. The father says, “Your mother is an excellent cook, but the chhole bhature she makes is… okay. No shame in eating outside once in a while. You can get a plate like this for Rs 60, maybe Momos for Rs 90,” he says, going on to add – “but a man never brings these home.”Only towards the end, does a woman overhearing the conversation realise that the duo aren’t talking about her food. The son is shown to be an accomplice in a rape, a few scenes earlier. I can see why co-writers Sinha and Gaurav Solanki [the duo had also earlier written Article 15] might lean on the wryness of a scene like this to explain a perpetrator’s mindset. But the scene feels too satisfied with its oversimplified metaphors for deep-seated dishonesty and compartmentalisation that the (primarily) male, urban population is capable of. Sinha’s film, which seems deliberately unsubtle by design to speak to an audience that only understands the language of manipulation instead of nuance, is trying to do too much at once. It wants to highlight the visceral depravity of a rape, comment on the broken law-and-order machinery protecting offenders, share its few cents on police brutality and vigilante justice. It seems to be looking around with disbelief, almost unable to recognise the society it inhabits. The result is a heavy-handed social drama that marries the lack of restraint of 90s exploitation films (like Damini, Gundaraj and Kurukshetra) with the nihilistic syntax and therapy-speak of today. People throw words like ‘trigger’, ‘trauma’, ‘vigilante’ like Sinha and Solanki were aiming for emotional reactiveness – rather than clinically assessing the roots of the problem. Kani Kusruthi (left) and Taapsee Pannu in a scene in ‘Assi’. Photo: Youtube/T-series.It’s apparent from how Parima (Kani Kusruthi) – a teacher in a reputed Delhi school – is chirpy in her early scenes. She has all the tics of a character about to have tragedy befall her. Discovered on the railway tracks by a stranger in the first scene – a grievously-injured and drugged Parima is forced to string together coherent words, which would become her ‘statement’, which she might be forced to stick to even if she remembers other details while recovering later. Lest the contradiction be used to label her testimony unreliable. Kusruthi, responsible for some of the most marvellous work on our screens in the last few years, is required to play it as straight as possible. There are glimmers of her brilliance, but it’s largely buried under a character that is largely a hapless, confused survivor – overwhelmed by a system built to rub salt to her wounds. There’s a strange subplot and character of Kumud Mishra, playing Kartik – grieving his wife’s death because of a negligent driver, who runs her over near a pedestrian crossing. He is acquainted with Vinay (Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub), Parima’s gentle and progressive husband. Kartik also forms a tether to Parima’s lawyer – Raavi (Taapsee Pannu), a colleague to Kartik’s late wife, Kaveri (voiced by Divya Dutta). Pannu has played this character before, and there’s a fluency she brings to it – without necessarily challenging herself to do more. As Kartik, Mishra remains one of the most confounding parts of the film – hinted to be a spy, unable to make any sense of the lawlessness, apathy and the cruelty on display around him. How did we get here?Sinha’s works have been iffy of late, especially with his last three ventures: Anek (2022), Bheed (2023) and IC:814 (2024) wearing their politics on their sleeve, but leaning closer to didactic PSAs. Having found the rhythm to marry social consciousness with masala in the last decade, Sinha’s powers seem to be waning. And yet, once in a while, it’s almost like Sinha wakes up during a scene, and is able to communicate the terror all around us with an urgency missing in most parts of the film. I was moved by a couple of the film’s smaller parts being essayed by veterans: like Seema Pahwa, playing the principal in the school where Parima teaches. “I’m ready, ma’am,” she tells her – only for the principal to respond, “but I’m not.” She delivers a possessed monologue, asking what had become of us, what have we done all these years. Visibly shook, she takes out a pile of papers – which are print-outs of WhatsApp groups, where students are joking about her rape.What is the role of educational institutions, if after all these years we haven’t even been able to distill something as basic as compassion for a rape survivor? Then there’s the role of the judge, played by a steely Revathy, walking the tight-rope of trusting the evidence in front of her, and the wordless stares of solidarity she shares with Pannu’s character, when most parts of the investigations can’t be fully trusted. Sinha employs a red screen reading ‘20 minutes’, marking another incident of rape having taken place in some part of the country. I found it gimmicky, and breaking the rhythm of the film. Also, I wasn’t so sure about a cop character (played by Jatin Goswami) quoting great Hindi poets like Ram Manohar Lohia and Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ – grappling between his corrupt ways, and being repulsed by the gross injustice taking place in front of his eyes. It reminded me of a more convincing role played by Rajesh Sharma in No One Killed Jessica (2011) – who blurts out how he took a bribe to not hit the accused, and shocks Vidya Balan’s Sabrina Lall. Assi is not Sinha’s finest hour as a director, but the lack of sophistication might be necessary to reach an audience that otherwise laps up mean-spirited propaganda. If he’s able to change even one man’s mind with his bleeding-heart sentimentality, then it might be deemed worth it. But for a filmmaker to shake a nation’s conscience, he might first need to trust their intelligence.*Assi is playing in theatres.