B. A. Pass Movie Reviews

Bhaiyya aap aa raha hai na?'' That is the haunting line you leave the auditorium with as the chase gets too hot for Mukesh to handle... He takes flight... literally! What else would one do when he comes to the end of the rope? Two young girls (sisters) have run away from the orphanage they were staying in. Their brother is to meet them at the New Delhi railway station. He wants to give them a better life as he is their only hope after their parents passed away

In sum, here’s a work which is permissive, graphic – even shocking (for the squeamish) – and rule-breaking. In fact, it recalls the manner is which B R Ishara had sniped away at hypocritical sexual mores back in the 1970s. This is adult cinema, neither cheap nor sniggering, but revelatory of reality behind closed doors. Try it.

It would be erroneous to treat this film as only a serious noire effort. It is that,yes. But it’s also a film that makes an impact in unexpectedly blithe ways, creeping up into our conscience when we least expect an intrusion and lodging itself cosily in a corner.

I love the word Taut. One of the finest words to describe films about crime, it’s a delicious word, evoking images of a tightrope yanked to within inches of breaking point, a tensed muscle coiled for action, a narrative stretched like cling-film. Unfortunately, it is a word we Indian critics get to use less, since far too many of our films (our thrillers, especially) meander on -- choosing to hem and haw and sing instead of getting to the point

The film opens with a funereal scene of an extended family in mourning over a double tragedy. It closes with a shockingly distressing finale. And nothing that happens in between provides the minutest glimmer of hope. Yet BA Pass is never less than riveting. It is an unflinching, scalding tale that exposes the heart of darkness that lies under the serene, genteel veneer of middle class life in Delhi. The downbeat drama, which marks cinematographer

BA Pass combines the bone-dry quality of a chiselled short story and the stark directness of a minimalist tragedy to deliver a taut, gripping film about the hell that a big city can be behind the bright neon lights and the living room glass cabinets stacked with flashy dolls. Not to be missed.

It’s not quite popcorn & cola stuff but if you are forever hungering for cinema of a different taste, check this one out.

In a voiceover during the film's opening scene, as he stares emptily at his parents' corpses before him, Mukesh, the protagonist of 'BA Pass' describes their untimely deaths as a betrayal. It's the first of many to come for this unsuspecting young boy, played by Shadab Kamal, who's at the cusp of discovering that it's every man for himself in the world outside. Adapted from a short story by Mohan Sikka titled 'Railway Aunty', which appeared

Converting a book into a film is a daunting task and director Ajay Bahl attempts just that with his film B.A. PASS. Based on a story 'The Railway Aunty' by Mohan Sikka from the book 'Delhi Noir', an anthology based mainly in and around Delhi, the film is the story of a young, small-town boy Mukesh [Shadab Kamal], who moves to Delhi to stay with his aunt and finish his college. It is here that he is seduced by a mysterious married woman

Savita bhabhi has a new competitor. Sarika Khanna (Shilpa) is a ‘desperate’ housewife who finds sexual gratification in the arms of a younger boy Mukesh (Shadab) who gets addicted to their steamy sessions. What starts off as an isolated random encounter soon becomes a regular affair. But before you think this one is a one dimensional erotic drama, there comes a twist that puts the right spin to the story. Soon the tables turn and the temptress

It's raining quality indies in B-town. After the epoch-ushering Ship of Theseus comes BA Pass, a first film by Ajay Bahl adapted from Mohan Sikka's The Railway Aunty, a short story. Masterful craftsmanship couples with riveting storytelling to form a satiating noir feature on the themes of lust and treachery (with some coming of age thrown in for good measure) that is well worth your time. When we first meet young Mukesh, it's at his parents' funeral

Sexual awakening is one thing while it leading to extreme consequences is another. To director Ajay Bahl’s advantage, there haven’t been many Hindi films that could tackle both the points maturely. Making the most of the so-called neo-noir genre, the film at hand rises above the mundane and tries to stick its neck out into the darker side of life. Though the first half is quite predictable, the second half shakes you off your seat with its rawness

If you want a change from the colourful canvas of Bollywood, and you like it dark, very dark – test this one out.

The film also stays away from being preachy, trying to give a message or play the holier than thou card. Instead it digs deep into the subject and fleshes out different emotions and facets of this lust story.

BA Pass is dark, even for a noir. Scenes in the sunshine come as a relief from the murky depths of a landscape that’s Mukesh’s hell. There’s almost no positivity in the film. Nothing to cling on to when you’re done. This is a rare experience in a Hindi film.

This is a dark film. It is quite different from Bollywood romp and masti of half-demented heroes (Akshay Kumar, John Abraham) in Desi Boyz (2011) that delved on a similar theme.

B.A. Pass holds your interest as long as Bahl sticks to Sikka’s darkly twisted story. But each time he diverges — including his choice of the film’s cheesy name (Sikka’s story is titled The Railway Aunty) — the narrative wobbles.

There is so little attention paid, in a thought-through manner, to the questions arising from marital emptiness and genteel, soul-sucking poverty, and urban decay that when a film like B.A. Pass comes along, you are willing it to be about all of this and more. Ajay Bahl's directorial debut lays out a plot with promise, but then belies it, by not giving us as much as it could, and should have. Mohan (Kamal) is an orphan with no prospects, but burdened

Mohan Sikka’s short story ‘The Railway Aunty’, on which the film is based, uses its atmosphere of defeat and rancidness much better. In the film, Bahl creates claustrophobia well, and then loses the story and the characters in it. We want to see underneath, and what we get, instead, is neon glaze.

Ultimately though, it isn’t the sex or the characters of B.A. Pass that are memorable. It’s the electric beauty of director-cinematographer Ajay Bahl’s Delhi and that luminous, topsy-turvy Paharganj made up of lurid lights, dreams and nightmares.

On the whole, B.A. Pass is an interesting film with a lot of sex scenes to satiate the voyeuristic hunger of the audience. It should do well but its depressing end will limit its business.