Newton(2017)- Review

Newton is a black comedy film featuring Nutan "Newton" Kumar (Rajkummar Rao) who is a novice government official, currently serving as a reserve for election duty. Newton is a hardliner for rules and believes doing his duty truthfully & diligently. After a main officer assigned to a polling station bows out, Newton being the next reserve is called upon. He unquestioningly accepts his task and sets out for fulfilling his duty. The task however is not so straightforward, the area assigned to him is a naxal-controlled territory that too with very few registered voters. To safeguard him and his team a security force, led by Assistant Commandant Aatma Singh (Pankaj Tripathi), is assigned to be with him. Neither the security forces nor his colleagues take their task seriously but Newton being the honest man he is tries his very best to conduct free and fair polling despite there being a looming threat of possible attacks. The film simply depicts Newton’s attempts to do his job on Election Day in this remote area.

The film is very unique in in its attempts to show a peculiar storyline that rarely would come across anybody’s mind. Rao & Tripathi do a fantastic job acting-wise and hold the film together with their skill. Unlike other films of the type on and around election day this one breaks the norm and depicts a very calm and slow paced run of events. This surely works in its favor making the film exiting in its own way. Finally the makers try to show the reality of the largest elections in the world, and succeed in doing so amazingly.

While on the topic of reality, the film majorly comes across as trying to convey reality, some scenes can make the viewers question the same very premise. With the story that builds up there is a sense of anticipation as to how the film would end, but the movie disappoints in its penultimate leg of the story and seems to finish abruptly.

The movie has a few mistakes sure but it is still worthwhile to watch when compared to the Bollywood movies that seem to revolve around a few storylines. It surely deserves the accolades it has received, with being India’s submission for the Academy Awards, among others. Not everyone may like it because of its slow pace but you should still give it a try.

Acting- 8.5

Casting- 9

Cinematography- 9

Dialogue- 8

Directing- 8.5

Editing & Effects- 7

Sound & Music- 7.5

Story- 7

Storytelling- 8.5

Rating- 8.5

Available on: Amazon Prime

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