Trapped (2017) 'Mashup' Review

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Review by Rohitavra Majumdar

First things first, there aren’t many logical flaws in Trapped. While the trailer was intriguing, it did receive lots of “phone hain uske pass, kisiko call kyun nahin kar rahe hain?” (why can’t he call someone when he has a mobile) kind of comments, and both the director and actor (Vikramaditya Motwane and Rajkumar Rao) have repeatedly said that the film is going to explain this, and it does that conveniently. Yes, as you can expect, the phone battery gets drained, and there is no electricity, and the reason behind that has also been pretty clear in the movie.

Trapped is a gripping, very convincing psychological drama cum survival thriller which totally depends on the execution by the director and the performance of its lead actor. As many of you already know, this is a story about a man getting trapped at his own flat in a high-rise Mumbai building without electricity and much of the food and water.

The building is still somewhere under construction and has some legal issues, so no one (other than our protagonist) really lives there, which makes the situation more difficult for the guy and the film more compelling for us. Whether it goes the ‘127 Hours’ way (where a mountain climber’s hand gets stuck by a rock but he ultimately survives) or the ‘Buried’ way (where a truck driver gets trapped inside a coffin buried deep into the grounds) is something you find out yourself.

But the interesting part is, the film is made in such a way that you can’t predict which way it will go. One moment you’re hopeful and feel this guy might survive, but then in the very next moment, something happens, and you get the feeling that things might not end up well for the guy. Motwane has directed the whole thing beautifully by infusing interesting flashback scenes and some surrealistic bits in the second half.

The film has been shot claustrophobically (which was intentional for sure), and the terrific background score has only increased the amount of panic. Although very exciting and entertaining, this is not an easy film to watch. The more the film progresses, the more creepy and disturbing it becomes.

The film completely belongs to Rajkumar Rao, though. As the helpless guy trapped in the apartment here, he is absolutely phenomenal. The way his facial expressions and body language change as the film moves forward is evidence of this guy being a naturally great actor. The script writers (Amit Joshi and Hardik Mehta) also deserve credit here for writing this character as a rather jumpy, kind of not-so-badass guy, which has allowed Rao to portray the evolution of this unfortunate guy, in the time span of the film.

Trapped is not totally perfect, though. The first fifteen minutes are kind of a drag, even though it is understandable that it is there to set the main thing in motion. And the final ten minutes also seem kind of unnecessary, although the very last scene is wonderful and shows the true nature of both the film and the character.

Vikramaditya Motwane has directed the refreshing coming-of-age tale Udaan and the hauntingly beautiful period romance Lootera before this. Compared to those two, Trapped falls a bit short. But even then, this comes off as a very taut, well-made survival thriller and also an indication of the director being versatile enough to try his hand at different genres.

Review by Souvik Saha

Trapped is a ticking time bomb from the moment it starts. The premise of the film is undoubtedly marvelous: the story of a man trapped in his apartment in the sixth most populous city in the world. The first 20 minutes unravel as a detective story, providing clues and looping in the viewers to the seemingly implausible premise. This part of the film is ferociously efficient, and in no time, the stakes are escalated, and the unassuming protagonist ends up in the kind of soup for which we were waiting from the moment the trailer arrived.

Once the protagonist is locked in his apartment, denial sets in and quickly converts to anger. Then starts the hatching of ingenious plans, none of which seems to work. The survival of the protagonist exemplifies the horror fantasies of a common man. The balcony shots are fantastic, foregrounding a helpless Rao against the daily hustle and bustle of the city, in particular, is ingenious, and strangely reminds me of a lonely Sandra Bullock looking at a colorful Earth in Gravity. One of the shots actually makes us squint and find Rao pointing a light from his balcony, amidst a bunch of high rises with lights flickering in from all directions.

Any kind of survival film demands nothing less than perfection from its lead, and Rajkummar Rao delivers just that. He plays the role of a man who, though determined, is too shy and doesn’t quite think of the long term. The instantaneous fear of a rat is more powerful to him than fetching water for survival. Cameras zoom into him all the time to create a sense of claustrophobia, and Rao’s acting never disappoints. Gitanjali Thapa is endearing in her short role.

Siddharth Diwan does a fine job with the camera, as I have mentioned earlier. Another very noteworthy point about the movie is the insane sound design and sound mixing, very rarely seen in Bollywood. I looked it up, and Anish John is the Sound Designer and Mixer, who won the National Award previously for Labour of Love, a film that I completely adore.

Motwane has always been a confident filmmaker. He knows his craft well enough to make Trapped an edge-of-the-seat affair. However, the best parts of Trapped are the few minutes at the end, where Rao returns to the monotonous life of his middle-class existence, trapped within the walls of his office, buses, and trains. Trapped is a story of urban isolation, where we live inside walls of our own, and in an attempt to break free from them, Rao is trapped between another set of walls, which are not quite as inconspicuous as the earlier ones.