Viewer’s Review
Film: Scam 1992 – the Harshad Mehta Story
Original release: 9 October 2020
Total episodes: 10
By OP Srivastava*
Sometimes you have so much to write about a movie that you do not know where to start. So let me start by writing about one thing out of ‘n’ number of good things about this movie, which I think is a kind trendsetter for the film Industry.
The film, called Scam 1992 – the Harshad Mehta Story, has tried to bring to screen the factors that created a phenomenon called Harshad Mehta. Harshad was a super-hero for the retail investors in India but the real Harshad Mehta was merely an embodiment of middle class aspirations, particularly the middle class Gujarati aspirations with an inborn hunger for money and recognition. He had the handicap of being born in a family of meager financial means and also being deprived of an opportunity to have a good education. These ‘handicaps’ created a bundle of inferiority complex in his personality, which got manifested in his strong dislike for the elite or the privileged in society. When he started dabbling in the share market he realized that the affluence in life was not a factor of merit, it was rather a by –product of manipulation and machinations.
Also read: Review: ‘A Suitable Boy’ is not a film aimed at Indians staying in India
This story is painstakingly captured by the ten episode long series and in the process discovered two amazingly talented actors namely Pratik Gandhi and Shreya Dhanwanthary. Pratik Gandhi (who hails from Surat, a place known for the speculative share market activity) has not only acted as Harshad Mehta, he has been successful in portraying the ‘phenomenon’ called Big Bull. A Gujarati stage actor, Pratik, has gone under the skin of the character to bring out the story of the making of the phenomenon called Harshad Mehta. His acting, his mannerism, his understated confidence or the lack of it, his searching eye glances with a quarter of a smile, his body language (a copy of AB’s gait) coupled with his Gujrati tinged accent and frequent use of Gujarati idioms and word play has been able to personify the complex character of Harshad Mehta, who till his last days was convinced that he did nothing wrong and was playing the game like the rest of the elite and his party was brought to a stop by somebody who had something deeply personal against him, an angle which the film also tries to hint at without confirming it.
The second discovery of the film is the female lead Shreya Dhanwanthary, who has been Miss India South 2008. This is her first big break in mainstream Hindi cinema and she has gracefully capitalized on the opportunity. The energy and rectitude with which she has carried the role of a professional financial journalist is admirable. She brings authenticity to an offbeat character of a young journalist, who was trying to take on the big bad world, while navigating the by lanes of Dalal Street. Shreya has been able to do justice to the character while managing to bring out the frustration, determination and the vulnerability of a young female financial journalist, who is trying to make her place in the domain of financial journalism, which was conventionally dominated by the men. Besides having an expressive face and beautiful eyes, she has the acting talent, the right combination to be a potential acting star in Indian film industry.
It is no secret that stock market lingo in India is Gujarati flavored Hindi and the makers of this film have used the same in the film to add authenticity to the characters and the storyline. Though the film is based on a book, which is full of technicalities and financial jargons, the film’s script has focused on the human side of the story behind this complex web of transactions.
It is heartening to see how the writers of the screenplay have simplified the financial jargon of the share and money market into simple and easy to follow dialogues in ‘Gujrati flavored Hindi’ with the use of idioms and word play. There are plenty of such interesting dialogues like ‘Ishq hai to Rishk hai’, ‘Bears ke ball bearings tight ho jayenge’, ‘Paper main upper ka line sirf attention ke liye hota hai’, ‘’Don’t value a company on the basis of its value’ (aka Value is a matter of perception), ‘Aap hamen jaan jaoge to maan jaoge’, ‘Sitaraman Bank of India’, ‘CBI has started liking the breakfast of my home’ etc.( I could not follow many. ) Backed by the shooting at authentic locations like the Bombay Stock Exchange, Dalal Street (you will recognize the white staircase of BSE, if you have been there), State Bank building, Fort, CBI office in Bellard Estate, Times of India Office at Fort, Mumbai etc., and by using names of the real persons like Ashwin Mehta, Sitharaman, Pherwani etc the film has become highly relatable. I especially enjoyed Sucheta’s conversation in Times of India office with the cartoonist RK Laxman when she asked him why he did cartoons of common man only and not common woman. His reply was witty as usual, “ Women are not common.” Such cameos make the film endearing.
The film is also about a new technique, which has started gaining prominence in the Indian film industry only recently and the technique is called ‘Casting’. The credit for introducing and perfecting this art of casting goes only to one person in the industry and his name is Mukesh Chabbra. His approach of research based casting makes the landscape of a film look more inclusive and more realistic.
Starting with the films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Shahid, and Dangal, Mukesh Chabbra’s latest casting coup is Scam 1992. He has perfected this art to such an extent that in a 10 episode long series like Scam 1992, the characters casted by him have overshadowed the storyline itself.
These characters seem to be an integral part of the story line and the entire film comes to life through its ‘varied set of characters’ only – the lead as well as the secondary – they all seem to be absolutely authentic and real, be it Harshad Mehta (flawlessly played by Pratik Gandhi), brother Ashwin, his conscience keeper ( played by Hemant Kher), his lonely wife Jyoti (Anjali Bardot), his partner Bhutan Bhat with his internal burns ( played by Chirag Vohra), his handsome debauch broker friend Pranav Seth ( played by Jay Upadhyay), the gritty professionalism of Sucheta Dalal (superbly portrayed by Shreya Dhanwanthary through her expressive face and quiet demeanour), the quiet helplessness of RBI Governor ( played by Ananth Mahadevan), the snobbish Citi banker Tyagi ( Nikhil Dwivedi) , the insidious money market broker Ajay Kedia (Shadaab Khan) , the cool menacing bear king, Manu Mundra ( played by Satish Kaushik to perfection), the frustrated NHB Chairman (KK Raina), the grand Parasi style classiness of SBI Chairman (Vivek Vaswani), the exasperations of a righteous CBI Director Madhavan ( played by Rajat Kapoor), the vulnerability of being a PSU banker (Rajesh Jais), the romance of being a young investigative journalist Debashish (Faisal Rashid ) , the itchiness of being stuck in a frustrating routine job Sitaraman ( Jaimini Pathak), the political side of a scheming Swami (Karthik Krishnan) and the stammering innocence of Sharad Bellary ( Sharib Hashmi).
Such powerful performances by a battery of secondary actors in a popular and successful film like Scam 1992 will, I hope, open floodgates of opportunities for talented character actors. In fact this casting coup is a kind of a mini-revolution in the film industry as it is enlarging the scanning universe of potential actors and taking the searchlight to the smaller towns and cities of India- a welcome trend indeed.
Finally all credit must to the veteran filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who has a track record of a giving us such meaningful films like Shahid, City Lights, Aligarh, and Omerta. He has always picked up socially relevant issues and beautifully de-cluttered them to produce lovable films.
*OP Srivastava is a National Award winning filmmaker
