Rani Mukerji gets plenty of scope to shine, seething with anger, screaming, radiating fury, and even taking on hand-to-hand combat in a truly boss-lady role, notes Mayur Sanap.
Key Points
- Rani Mukerji returns as Shivani Shivaji Roy in Mardaani 3.
- The shadow of Delhi Crime 3 looms large in Mardaani 3.
- The villain is played by a terrific Mallika Prasad.
When Mardaani released in 2014, it didn’t attempt to reinvent the cop film. Instead, it gave Rani Mukerji a sharp image makeover and re-introduced her as no-nonsense police officer Shivani Shivaji Roy.
The template of cop-chasing-criminal was familiar, but it worked as a no-frills star vehicle for Mukerji, who functions as both a moral anchor and a saviour of this story.
Although Shivani wins in the end, the first film closes on a sombre, unsettling note: ‘ladhaai abhi bhi baaki hain.’
Over the years, Shivani has taken on human trafficking and drug networks, brought down a serial rapist, and now, in Mardaani 3, she goes up against a beggar mafia operating in North India.
While the story is more than a tad derivative, Mardaani 3 is just as stylish and a gritty cop drama that benefits enormously from the Rani Mukerji’s tough-as-nails cop exuding the total main-character energy as Shivani Shivaji Roy.
What Mardaani 3 is about
The film opens in the Sunderbans in West Bengal, where Shivani appears undercover, hoping to bust a human trafficking racket. Her face remains hidden as she blends in among other women who have been trafficked.
When the situation escalates, Shivani breaks cover to protect another girl, which leads to a sharply-staged action set piece that doubles as her heroic entry, usually reserved for Rohit Shetty’s cop universe heroes.
After this exhilarating introduction, the story shifts to Delhi, where Shivani is assigned the investigation into the abduction of two girls, Suhani, the daughter of an influential man, and Jhimli, the daughter of his domestic worker.
As the case unfolds, Shivani is drawn into the hidden world of a beggar mafia, where children are abducted and subjected to severe abuse. Her investigation reveals that 93 young girls have gone missing under suspicious circumstances in just three months.
At the centre of it all is Amma (played by Mallika Prasad), whose name is spoken in hushed tones long before she appears on screen. When she finally does, Amma emerges as some kind of demonic figure, who runs unethical businesses in shadowy bylanes.
Is Mardaani 3 worth a watch?
The first half of Mardaani 3 packs a heavy hangover of Delhi Crime 3, with its focus on child trafficking and a female antagonist. In the second half, the story introduces a new villain who acts as Amma’s confidante.
Intended as a plot twist, this character shifts the film away from its original premise into a bizzare plot involving medical lab experiments on young girls.
After the pointed references to the beggar mafia, the film absolutely squanders the chance to say anything about it at all.
The film also suffers from familiar Bollywood cop-film conventions where the protagonist is conveniently one step ahead until the narrative demands she be overpowered.
Villains have always been a strong point of Mardaani films, and Mallika Prasad, the first female antagonist in the series, shows promise with a chilling early presence. However, her character evolves into a cardboard villian, as the story concludes her arc in a curiously abrupt way.
Director Abhiraj Minawala, working from a story by Aayush Gupta, seems primarily focused on highlighting Rani Mukerji’s character and her bravado. So much so that even the villains feel ineffective, and the mystery surrounding them ends up feeling largely predictable.
Also, for a franchise that has been steadily evolving, this installment doesn’t take the story or characters much further, either emotionally or thematically. This is evident in Jisshu Sengupta’s role as Shivani’s husband Dr Bikram Roy.
Sengupta is a talented actor, but he has been given a one-note character whose main purpose seems to be worrying whether his driven wife gets any sleep. The role offers him little to do, and his character arc sees almost no development.
My biggest gripe with Mardaani 3 is that, unlike its predecessors, the social message feels oddly superficial. The film takes the easy route, sticking to a straightforward hero-versus-villain story and sacrificing nuance for spectacle.
The Mardaani 3 cast
Rani Mukerji gets plenty of scope to shine, seething with anger, screaming, radiating fury, and even taking on hand-to-hand combat in a truly boss-lady role.
She isn’t trying to be Vartika Chaturvedi from Delhi Crime or Soni and Kalpana from Soni, she knows she is in a Hindi masala film and plays Shivani at full volume, delivering a flamboyant performance.
It’s fun to watch her kick ass, if only her swashbuckling style peppered with words like ‘devi‘, ‘rakshas‘ and ‘vadh‘ didn’t come in odds with the film’s more grounded take on feminism.
Janki Bodiwala (Shaitaan) enters the franchise as a young constable named Fatima who offers just enough moral and emotional ambiguity to her engaging role.
Mardaani 3 may follow familiar territory, but remains watchable even when the story falters or takes unexpected detours. It greatly works because of the commanding presence of Rani Mukerji, who once again carries the film with ease.
She’s strong, and she knows it.
Mardaani 3 Review Rediff Rating: 
