Film: Mrs Undercover

Cast: Radhika Apte, Sumeet Vyas, Rajesh Sharma, Laboni Sarkar, Saheb Chatterjee, Biswajit Chakraborty

Director: Anushree Mehta

OTT: Zee5

Rating: 2 Moons

Radhika Apte’s Mrs Undercover had the potential to be a true-blue, all-out spy-comedy, with ample dose of humour and a strong message at the end at least that was the premise one could take from the trailer. However, it falls flat on its face with its botched storytelling, lackluster narrative, illogical writing and too-simplistic deductions. Written and directed by Anushree Mehta, Mrs Undercover revolves around a secret agent, Durga (Radhika Apte) who is called upon by the special force from her days of oblivion as a Bengali housewife to take down a serial killer known as the ‘common man’.

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Durga is not exactly gung-ho about taking on the case as she has household responsibilities of her unappreciative husband, son and parents-in-law. However, this does not mean that she does not aspire to get back to her former life as is shown by her recurring dreams of fighting goons like James Bond. Mrs Undercover is the kind of film that aims to hail the female protagonist and show a light on the fact that women can ‘do it all’ but ends up reducing her to a caricature.

Mrs Undercover could have been the perfect star vehicle for Radhika, after all she leads the film. She delivers when it comes to flexing her muscle, mouth powerful dialogues and even showcases her comic timing but is painfully one-note in the film with the same bewildered expression of surprise over and over again. The film could have been the game-changer for her but she is bogged down by an extremely weak script.

The film tries to tackle a whole load of issues and this proves to be its bane as none of the subplots have been fleshed out properly. Most of the characters are one-dimensional with hardly any backstory to them. Even the antagonist, played by Sumeet Vyas has no concrete motive to murder the empowered and strong women. Sumeet, who usually impresses with his performances, fails to live up to the expectations as a merciless killer. Rajesh Sharma tickles the funny bone with his interactions with Durga but fails to add much to the narrative.

Mrs Undercover is a disappointing spy-comedy that could have been better with the premise it took, but ends up making a mockery of women, after all elevating the fairer sex to the position of goddesses is also a form of misogyny, that we see too often in real life.

PeepingMoon.com gives Mrs Undercover, 2 Moons.