Prahaar Review: Rajkummar Rao Argues the Kasab Case

Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam opened on Oct. 16 with Rajkummar Rao as the public prosecutor in the Ajmal Kasab trial. Reviewers agree the courtroom scenes are the film's best stretch. They split on whether Rao's performance feels lived-in or polished, and on how much the family subplot slows the film.

The film

Avinash Arun directs from a screenplay by Sumit Roy. Rao plays Ujjwal Nikam, and the cast includes Wamiqa Gabbi as his wife, Lalit Prabhakar as Kasab, Jaideep Ahlawat as a Pakistani prosecutor, Sikandar Kher as the defence lawyer and Ashish Vidyarthi as the judge. Maddock Films produced it. Scroll lists the runtime as 150 minutes and The Hindu as 140.

According to India Today, the film opens with Nikam celebrating his win in the 1993 Bombay blasts case, then follows him into the trial that began after the 26/11 attacks in 2008.

What worked

The Tribune's Subhash K Jha calls it gritty and compelling and says it works less as a biopic than as a courtroom drama, which he names as its greatest strength. He singles out Rao's courtroom exchanges with Kher and Vidyarthi as the highlight.

The Hindu's Anuj Kumar says writer Sumit Roy refuses to turn the film into a jingoistic spectacle and that the narrative respects due process. He praises Lalit Prabhakar's performance as Kasab and the restraint of Kher's defence lawyer, and calls Dior Ranju Varghese, who plays a young eyewitness, excellent. India Today's Sana Farzeen calls that child's testimony the film at its most powerful.

What did not

Scroll's Nandini Ramnath calls the film a slick, occasionally gripping chronicle of a conviction foretold, and says it is in an argument with itself because it accommodates too many discrete opinions. She notes that it pads what amounts to an open-and-shut case.

Both The Hindu and India Today question Rao. Kumar writes that the raw vulnerability of Rao's earlier turn as lawyer Shahid Azmi has given way to technical polish. Farzeen says the performance occasionally feels manufactured, and that the climactic monologue will draw whistles but is not the same as emotional impact. India Today also finds Gabbi stiff as Nikam's wife, while The Hindu says she tries to add spark to a predictable arc.

India Today's larger complaint is structural: the screenplay keeps leaving the courtroom for Nikam's family life, and the result is a stop-start narrative. HerZindagi makes a similar point, calling the first half very slow, and says the film picks up in the second half.

Why it matters

Rao has played real people before, and the film bets on a procedural about due process rather than a revenge story. The reviews suggest that bet pays off in court and costs the film outside it.

What we could not confirm

We have not seen the film, and we have not found official box office figures. The sources give two runtimes, and Tribune names the defence lawyer differently from The Hindu and Scroll, which fits the film's use of fictionalised characters. The Hindu and India Today texts were read in full, while HerZindagi was read in part.

Sources

*Cover photo: Deepak Naik, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Actor_Rajkummar_Rao.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Actor_Rajkummar_Rao.jpg)* (CC0).*