Zee Studios and Anandita Studios’ Haddi is the story of transgenders. Hari has a sex-change operation and becomes Harika. She is also called Haddi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).
Haddi moves to Delhi from Allahabad and joins the network run by corrupt politician Pramod Ahlawat (Anurag Kashyap). She has a motive to join Ahlawat’s gang — to avenge the murder of her guru, Revathi Amma (Ila Arun). There’s also her love story with activist Irfan (Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub).
Akshat Ajay Sharma and Adamya Bhalla have written a story which may not appeal to many among the audience if only because it talks of that marginalised section of society, which nobody wants to talk about or associate with. Their screenplay is confusing in the initial part but the drama gains more clarity as it unfolds. Still, it never really becomes so engrossing that the viewers would feel entertained. Several scenes are so raw that many among the viewers would feel repulsed by them. The duo’s dialogues are okay.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui does a phenomenal job in the title role. He plays the transgender to such perfection that it would seem like he were born to play the character. Anurag Kashyap performs wonderfully as Pramod Ahlawat. Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub makes a fantastic mark as activist Irfan. Ila Arun makes her presence felt in a brief role as Revathi Amma. Saurabh Sachdeva has his moments. Vipin Sharma is superb. Shreedhar Dubey lends fine support. Saharsh Kumar Shukla is adequate. Others are nice.
Akshat Ajay Sharma’s direction is quite alright. Rohan & Rohan’s music is fair while their background score is okay. Rohan Gokhale’s lyrics are weighty. Piyush Puty and Jay Pinak Oza’s cinematography is reasonably nice. Sunil Rodrigues’ action and stunt scenes are raw. Production designing (Prashant Rane, Ashok Lokare and Boishali Sinha) is of a decent standard. Tanya Chhabria’s editing should’ve been tighter.
On the whole, Haddi is a film for a section of the audience known as class audience.
Released on 7-9-’23 on Zee5.