In Anil Kapoor’s Harshvardhan Rune, Divya Khosla’s film managed to be one of the bright spots

A gender-reversed, Indian mythology-inspired adaptation of the Jailbreak thriller Next three days (2010), which was a remake of the French film Pour Eli (Anything for Her, 2008), Savi huffs and puffs through the story of a housewife who fights tooth and nail to get her murder-guilty husband out of a high-security Liverpool. the prison

In terms of its technical characteristics, Savi Nothing is lacking. Cinematographer Chinmoy Salaskar and editor Shaan Mohammed give the film sustained gloss and pace. Director Abhinay Deo, working with an adapted screenplay by Parvez Shaikh and Asim Arora, has done more than that and added a glossy veneer to the film.

Savvy is not to be found at the plot level itself. It is undone by many clichés. All the polish visible on the clay is strictly on the surface. The inherent flourishes and sparkles of the production cannot fill the void in the core of the film.

As the story of an ordinary woman determined to give her husband a new life because she believes he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice – the film is a modern-day take on the myth of Savitri and Satyavan – Savi Fails to pack a punch or two that might surprise the audience.

The story unfolds at an even pace but never breaks away from the monotonous loop. The performances of Divya Khosla, who has a role that allows her ample room to display her emotional prowess, and Harshvardhan Rane, a character with limited space and scope, are sincere but rudimentary.

Two actors have very big shoes – Vincent Lyndon and Diane Kruger (the French original) and Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks (the American adaptation directed by Paul Haggis) – to fill. A tall order. Not that they don’t try, but because of the slapdash plot and erratic writing, there’s a limit to how much they can rattle off a rescue mission.

As a loving couple thrown into deep crisis after an Indian construction industry worker is accused of killing his ill-tempered female boss with a fire extinguisher, Rane and Khosla Kular carry the full weight of the film. They have some help until Anil Kapoor appears on the scene and Savvy does a bit more.

Nakul Sachdev (Rane) pleaded not guilty but was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Left to protect their son, Adi, is Savi Sachdev (Khosla), with the help of Jaideep Paul (Anil Kapoor), a reclusive ex-convict who lives alone in a forest mansion with a pit bull for company and writes books about his multiple escapes from prison. Goes, makes a bold plan to free her husband.

Nakul along with a group of inmates go on a drug spree inside the prison. Nakul survives. The assailants were kept in solitary confinement for a month on his charges. The action gathers pace while the evil lurks three days away from being released again. For Savi, it is now a race against time.

The urgency of her mission never hits home because none of Savvy’s work carries the ring of desperation you might expect from the moves of a woman with her back against the wall. There aren’t many turns in the film where one can understand the intensity of Savi’s pain.

On one occasion, she tells her father (MK Raina) in a video call that she will be out of touch for a few days. In another, she asks a friend to take care of her son if his return is delayed. The risks his choices are fraught with are clear as daylight but the protagonist’s actions are trapped in a mechanical loop.

Savi Lured into Liverpool’s underworld, where Jaideep Paul warns him, he may have to be shot to death. He has doubts about his ability to pull the trigger when needed. He is not a criminal. But does he have a choice? Things inevitably spiral out of control as the heroine crosses a dangerous path.

For the next three days, for whatever reason, the wife is in prison. Here, the husband has to be saved. The onus is on the woman to prove the depth of her love to her man. But wouldn’t it be wiser for her to wait for her husband to finish his jail term or take legal means to prove his innocence?

The logic of Savi’s basic premise is not beyond question, even if one admits that it is not entirely questionable. With the two lead actors left to do whatever they can to hold the film together, it often flounders. As for the irresistible glee the troubled heroine exudes, Anil Kapoor’s smiling, smooth-talking character is tasked with injecting some humor into the film.

he does But rather than providing comic relief, his witticisms seem to be in keeping with the tone of the rest of the story. To Kapoor’s credit, the veteran actor still manages to be a bright spot in the film. Mostly flailing around in the dark, Savvy doesn’t have much.