‘Despatch’ review: A sordid tour of journalism
Kanu Behl’s Hindi film, loosely inspired by the murder of crime reporter J Dey, is out on ZEE5.
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The news continues to be bad for journalists. Struggling to keep body and soul together, they also have to contend with screen depictions that either valourise them impossibly or turn viewers off the profession entirely.
In Despatch, Kanu Behl questions the notion of the noble newspaper correspondent striving to bring readers the information they need to become more effective citizens. The Hindi film, which is out on ZEE5, is set in a seedy corner of the Fourth Estate from where a dodgy specimen champions the ideal of honesty in a fashion that is entirely his own.
It is 2012. Joy Bag (Manoj Bajpayee), a star at the Despatch newspaper in Mumbai, stumbles on a fraudulent scheme unlike anything he has ever seen. Joy is unable to make sense of the crores involved. He can scarcely believe the personalities behind this.
Joy begins to unravel the mystery behind a company called GDR which is involved in an IPL scam so large, it even overshadows the 2G spectrum case. Ever so often, Joy appears to be drowning in this alphabet soup of iniquity. Viewers too may be unable to keep up with the exact nature of what Joy has found.
Joy’s private life is as hectic as his muckraking. His affair with Prerna...
