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........

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