I went in looking for Bagha Jatin as Dev. I got that. What more can I ask for?

Ah, the delights of observing Dev. There are no shocks when you go into a dimly lit theater to see a movie starring this celebrity. Basically, you got what you were hoping for. Dev is yours. Thus, in Golondaaj, Nagendrapasad Sarbadhikari is Dev. (Instead of the other way around, as it very likely ought to be.) As was Byomkesh Bakshi earlier this year in Byomkesh O Durgo Rahasya. And in Bagha Jatin, he still is Dev. From his previous capers such as Cockpit and Kidnap, just the time is different. He lives in that ethereal zone where every celebrity wishes to be, where he or his films are immune to critiques, as I said in another review of a Dev potboiler. And sure, even when Dev's picture stumbles, it is difficult to be critical of him.

Alright, Bagha Jatin stumbles. Additionally, how. One of the best liberation warriors Bengal has ever produced is this one. When Jatindranath Mukherjee, then 36 years old, was shot and killed by British forces in the Balasore woods in 1915, he was already a legend, a name both revered and feared. He was involved in almost every significant anti-British movement throughout the first fifteen years of the 1900s. It is very strange how his passing occurred at the same time that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned home, and how that changed how we conducted the campaign for our liberation.

However, it's possible that those outside of Bengal are unaware of this remarkable revolutionary. It's questionable how many people in the state, even here, are aware of his existence beyond the myth of how he earned his name. That project belongs to Arun Roy then. To present these revered names to the audience: Jugantar, Barindra Ghosh, Anushilan Samiti, Khudiram Bose, and Prafulla Chaki, among others. In addition, he performs his duties in a workmanlike way, offering what is, at most, a condensed history of the period and the man. You are somewhat familiar with the plot of the movie if you have read the Bagha Jatin article on Wikipedia. It also includes a direct transcript from a discussion found in the post.

For the MCU generation, this is history, stripped of any subtlety. That is to say, you have a freedom warrior in the early 20th century having fistfights fit for Peter Hein. There are bodies flying and spiraling in the air, akin to the omnipresent Telugu films that are so popular on television and are dubbed in Hindi. Hein choreographs a lot of the action in these films.

The figure emerges in slow motion and you get your first glimpse of him—just his feet, mind you—that's all that will suffice for an introduction. Occasionally, you capture him in slow motion, even if all that's seen in the photo is him moving away. And all of that while a throbbing background track and an uplifting tune that sounds more like a Singham chant are playing. He is continuously mouthing the line, "Jatin Mukherjee hoy loray noy moray," which the directors obviously know would cause applause and whistles and bring the house down. To put it simply, you know all there is to know about the guy, but for a true comprehension of his motivations.

Fascinating aspects of the man—such as his flirtation with acting and caricature, his apprenticeship under Swami Vivekananda, which influenced his worldview—either go unmentioned or are not thoroughly examined. One such instance is his relationship with supercop Charles Tegart, who held him in grudging admiration. A movie will never fully capture the lives and times of a guy such as Bagha Jatin, but the script can undoubtedly go beyond the apparent and provide a look into the man behind the freedom warrior. It's obvious that Arun Roy is not taking that route.

Which is unfortunate since a few years ago, Arun Roy released the quiet documentary "8/12 Binoy Badal Dinesh," which shed light on a Bengali revolutionary organization that not many people are aware of. Despite its static narrative, there was something rather moving about the movie. I blamed things on financial limitations, but it's clear that money wasn't a factor in this case. This movie had everything, excluding vision, that a Bengali film budget could purchase. You can tell there isn't much of it around when a director consistently uses heart-pounding music to evoke certain feelings in the story. You can only shake your head at a filmmaker's inability to comprehend the demands of a visual medium when they rely on lengthy voiceover narration sequences to set the scene for what is happening on screen.

Then again, maybe I'm being too critical. This is a Dev film, after all. Searching for Bagha Jatin as Dev, I entered the room. I understand. What more am I entitled to?

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a writer, editor, publisher, film reviewer, and enthusiast of movies and music.