Stolen movie review: Abhishek Banerjee's thriller is narrow, and not as impactful as it wants to be
Two brothers stuck in an impossible situation spiralling out of control without a lid in sight, in a Living-In-Two-Indias set-up: the premise of Stolen is sharp and current, and it starts out by pushing its unprepared protagonists, and us, into a state of high alert.
Gautam (Abhishek Banerjee) is in a swanky SUV outside a train station in the dead of night, waiting for his 'chota bhai' Raman (Shubham Vardhan) to alight from a horribly delayed train. At around the same time, a baby is snatched from next to a sleeping woman.
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In the usual course of things, the two policemen (Harish Khanna and Sahidur Rahaman) on the job would have ignored the distraught young mother: Jhumpa Mahato (Mia Maelzer) is a lone tribal woman spending the night on a station bench; ergo, she doesn't count. But the presence of Raman, clearly upper-class-and-caste, makes them stop in their tracks: can he, and his impatient brother who is all for making off as fast as possible, help or hinder? Can the oppressed be squashed a little more? And most importantly, can a quick buck be made on the side?
It takes 93 minutes for 'Stolen' to get where it does– from that swiftly executed theft to a tea-stall boy on the station who claims to have seen anything, to the corralling of the Bansal brothers, the younger one personifying the soft bleeding-hearts type who feels responsible and wants to help, the elder one wanting to use his money to get out of trouble not of his making, the arrival of armed villagers out in full force at the rumour of baby-stealing gangs, and a bloody denouement created to shifts a few needles.
While everything is clearly geared towards making the proceedings urgent, that crucial sense of urgency comes through only sporadically. Vardhan is a little more at ease than Bannerjee, but both feel like they are acting out sibling parts, without shared lived-in textures. It is Maelzer who is more authentic, both to her part as well as to the feeling that she gives off: of a woman at the end of her tether, buffeted by fate and situation. The writers (Tejpal, Gaurav Dhingra, Swapnil Salkar) succeed in making her a little more complex than she appears in the beginning, causing us to question her motivation: is she really who she claims to be, or is there something sinister in the way she has come by the baby? Has she been stolen from, or has she done the stealing?
Chase scenes with the car bouncing along sand dunes and lathi-clad men on motorcycles add to the run time, but not one of these characters has a face. By the time the stakes get truly high is towards the third act, in which the trio finds themselves in a dusty village, running for their lives. The question of who the victim is, and who the aggressor, one of the themes that the film wants us to think about, comes into play here, where the privilege of wealth and flashy cars and clothes recedes in the face of mob fury: this is where Gautam, terrified and helpless, rises to the occasion.
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Stripped of his shields, he is as vulnerable as anyone else, and it is only then that he sees the young woman for who she really is, and you know that this is where the film was heading, to this urban saviour finding his conscience. Going by his previous roles, Bannerjee is most effective when playing vile or silly; here his character finding redemption becomes the lens through which the larger societal injustice is viewed, making it narrower and not as impactful. And I wasn't left as shaken as I'd expected to be.
Stolen
Stolen cast – Abhishek Banerjee, Shubham Vardhan, Mia Maelzer, Harish Khanna, Sahidur Rahaman
Stolen director – Karan Tejpal
Stolen rating – 2.5/5
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The Wire
5 hours ago
- The Wire
‘Stolen' Embraces Contemporary India With All its Faults and Messiness
A still from 'Stolen'. Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute Now Karan Tejpal's Stolen might look like a thriller on the surface. But if one pays attention, it reveals itself as a survival film. For the uninitiated, a survival film is a subgenre of films telling tales of a character surviving an adventure gone awry. In Stolen, the misadventure entails residing in India in the 2020s. A nation with obscene inequalities, a broken law-and-order system that couldn't be less bothered about the people who need it the most, and a culture that is a sinister concoction of ancient traditionalism and new-age apathy – India in the 2020s is a whole new beast. It's a place that has picked up the vocabulary of empathy, privilege and virtue-signalling from the West, but one where fans of a cricket team throng a stadium and remorselessly stomp over dozens of people – as a part of their 'celebration'. It's where parts of a country insist on organic vegetables and alkaline water, while in another, farmers kill themselves after being unable to procure water, or a fair price for their produce. It's a country where a routine police complaint or a witness statement can become a life-long trauma in a close-up, and seems like a dark comedy in a long shot. In this country, anyone who thinks they can imbibe a few bookish ideals and implement them in an ordinary day of small-town India, is being too naive. The closer one gets, the more India can seem like a labyrinth – with each corner springing a surprise. It's something Tejpal's film knows all too well. Hence, it doesn't claim to know how to 'solve' it – instead stressing on what one can do with their limited intent. Jhumpa (Mia Maelzer) is one of the countless people asleep on a bench of a platform in a nondescript railway station in Northern India (the dialect suggests Haryana). Next to her is her five-month old infant, Champa. In the film's first scene, a veiled woman – the only one awake on the platform — steals the infant and flees. While running, she bumps into a train passenger, Raman Bansal (Shubham Vardhan), who has gotten off a train to attend his mother's wedding. Raman's brother Gautam (Abhishek Banerjee) is asleep in the parking lot of the station, having driven there in the dead of the night to pick him up. When Jhumpa wakes up a few minutes later, and can't seem to find her infant daughter – all hell understandably breaks loose. She alleges Raman stole her child, who is holding a pink beanie, which fell from the baby when the thief bumped into him. A mob gathers around them, and like it happens in India's smartphone revolution, people start recording the confrontation. It takes Gautam to diffuse the rising tensions, when he asks a simple question to Jhumpa and the police constable nearby – 'Would a thief stick around at the crime scene, holding on to evidence that will implicate him?' Something Tejpal's film does exceedingly well is layer the exposition into throwaway lines of dialogue without drawing attention to themselves. In the first five minutes, it's established that Gautam and Raman have a Shashi Kapoor-Amitabh Bachchan dynamic from Deewar (1975). Gautam is the pragmatic business-owner, while Raman is the idealistic photographer. Raman is painted by Gautam as someone who indulges his bad mental health ('I don't understand this celebration of depression', he says), and feels things a little too strongly. On the other hand, Raman can't understand Gautam throwing money at all the problems he encounters, and someone so consumed with his sheltered life and his efforts to preserve it – that he couldn't be bothered about even the most mundane acts of kindness and consideration. A still from 'Stolen'. It's because of Raman that the two brothers get embroiled in the search for Jhumpa's infant. He knows what Jhumpa has already made her peace with – the cops will probably do something to save face, but it will be too late to find her daughter. Gautam can smell the stink of the situation from far away, because he's dealt with the twisted Indian law enforcement system more than Raman would know. He repeatedly tells him that this is a trap and they should walk away. Both Banerjee and Vardhan have appeared in minor roles before and are painfully on-point as the two brothers, with entirely different skill-sets. While Raman is the empathetic social media warrior, out of his depth while trying to do the right thing, Gautam knows how quickly idealism can curdle into a witch-hunt in the hands of less-than-competent investigators, working out of their many ideological, social biases. Also, Jhumpa is a tribal, making the cops that much more suspicious of anything she says. Not only is she poor, but she's also a woman. The slightest outburst as a result of her desperation and helplessness, means she gets labelled 'hysterical'. Maelzer plays Jhumpa like an open wound of a character, impossible to look away from. Tejpal's film embraces India with all its faults and messiness, realising the many conflicts between the different social orders, schizophrenic ideologies, and a society where truth takes many forms. It's an era where a growing number of people hold smartphones, without a hint of the wisdom to not get carried away by a WhatsApp forward and lynch people in broad daylight. The film delivers biting commentary on how these parts of India are 'consumed' from behind the safety of a screen. One of the film's most tense sequences is viewed from inside the car, almost making us voyeurs to a crime. How does one react — put away the phone and pretend like nothing happened, or introspect about what they just saw? A still from 'Stolen'. As Stolen teases us with the bleakest of ends, some things are contrived in the last 20 minutes to make the climax hopeful. Slightly put off by the contrivances at first, I think I understood the reason behind them much later. Even in the starkest tales, maybe it's the makers' responsibility to leave people with a 'moral' that emphasises on doing the right thing, with the knowledge that it's hard to do over a prolonged period. In India, if you aren't at the receiving end of the system, it's probably because of blind luck or privilege, or both. Tejpal's film wants to tell you that even if you can't go around rectifying an impoverished country battling an identity crisis, when injustice stares you in the face, don't look away. Despite what disenchanted voices will say, Karan Tejpal's film is a reminder that despite all the bad faith around us, it can't be an excuse to do nothing. *Stolen is streaming on Amazon Prime Video The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
The Hindu
6 hours ago
- The Hindu
Madras High Court bids farewell to Justice RMT Teekaa Raman
CHENNAI The Madras High Court on Friday (June 6, 2025) bid adieu to Justice RMT. Teekaa Raman who is due to retire from service on June 8, 2025 on attaining the age of superannuation. With his retirement, the working strength of the High Court would get reduced to 58 as against the sanctioned strength of 75 judges. Delivering his farewell address, Advocate General P.S. Raman said, Justice Raman, hailing from Arcot in Vellore district, was a mathematician turned lawyer since he had obtained a bachelor's as well a master's degree in mathematics before pursuing law and getting enrolled with the Bar Council in 1988. He was selected as District Judge by direct recruiment in 2004 and joined Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service in 2005. After serving in various districts across Tamil Nadu and also in the High Court Registry, he got elevated as an additional judge of the High Court in November 2016 and became permanent in 2018. He had delivered many important verdicts including the 2023 judgement wherein he held that removal of uterus by a woman suffering from ovarian cancer would not amount to cruelty thereby entitling her husband to seek divorce on that ground. In another case, he held denying financial support to wife would amount to cruelty. In yet another case, he ruled that a marriage between an Indian professing Hinduism with a foreigner of different faith must necessarily be registered under the Special Marriage Act of 1954 and that such a marriage could not be considered as a valid marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. During his stint as a High Court for more than eight years, he had disposed of 22,699 main cases and 20,851 miscellaneous petitions. While a majority of 6,908 main cases were disposed of by him individually, another 5,042 main cases were disposed of as a part of various Division Benches. In his acceptance to the farewell address, Justice Raman thanked his mentor J. Kanagaraj, a former judge of the Madras High Court, his parents, other family members and gurus for their contributions towards his growth. He also recalled a couple of interesting criminal cases heard by him as a district judge.
NDTV
7 hours ago
- NDTV
Viral Again: Abhishek Banerjee's Old Parody Video Of Vijay Mallya Resurfaces After The Businessman's Recent Podcast Appearance
New Delhi: Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, facing fraud and money laundering allegations, recently made an appearance on Raj Shamani's podcast. The former liquor baron opened up about some long-standing issues related to his financial dealings, loan settlements and whether he is willing to return to India. After Vijay Mallya made his podcast debut, an old video of actor Abhishek Banerjee playing Vijay Mallya in a comedy sketch has been doing the rounds on social media. The clip, shared on X, is an excerpt from episode 3 of TVF's comedy series Daaru Pe Charcha. It features Abhishek parodying the infamous businessman while Jitendra Kumar plays the host. The setting is a mock talk show where the two discuss various topics over drinks, blending comedy with sharp commentary. The hilarious conversation between the two characters covers several topics, including Vijay Mallya's extravagant lifestyle, legal troubles and the public's perception of him, not unlike the conversation he had with Raj Shamani on his recent podcast. Watch the video here: Raj Shamnai's podcast is okay, but this OG Vijay mallya podcast is on another level. — Heisenberg (@uncertaintweet_) June 5, 2025 On the work front, Abhishek Banerjee's film Stolen was released on June 4. Inspired by the 2018 lynching of two men in Assam, the film features Mia Maelzer and Shubham Vardhan in key roles. NDTV, in its review, gave Stolen 3 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Unlike more didactic films, Stolen doesn't preach. It leaves room for ambiguity. There are no capital-V villains here, only fear, fatigue and desperation." After Stolen, Abhishek Banerjee has an interesting lineup of films to look forward to. The actor will be seen in projects like Toaster, Bhediya 2, Section 84, and Mirzapur: The Film. Makers have also announced that Abhishek will return as Jana in Stree 3.
