Baby Do Die Do

As an assassin story, Baby Do Die Do is not out of the ordinary. The only novelty is that the brooding hero is a deaf-and-mute hitwoman, not a hitman. The tropes are Freudian and familiar. A childhood tragedy turns this woman named Baby (Huma Qureshi) into a cold-blooded contract killer. She works for a father figure called Papa (Chunky Panday). She’s slick and experienced at her job; a sharp-shooting umbrella is her weapon. She finds a good man (Rachit Singh), and suddenly, the secret is too heavy. She wants out of the profession. She wants to be human. Except it’s not that simple. She’s in too deep. A bloody mess is imminent.

The hired killer in Baby Do Die Do is a woman. She is deaf and mute to boot. She can neither hear anything that anybody says nor spit out her rage in the form of words. She executes her chosen targets in utter silence with an umbrella that is actually a gun. Pretty much like the umbrella in a rain-soaked Mumbai, nothing is what it seems. The pivotal elements in Baby Do Die Do are intriguing all right but do they give the film an edge that serves its purpose? They do only sporadically. Huma Qureshi (who has also produced the film with her brother Saqib Saleem) fronts Baby Do Die Do with the ‘quiet’ confidence that the role calls for. She is unwaveringly consistent. The film is anything but.

Baby Do, sure. Baby Die, okay. But Baby Do Die Do? Can there be a clunkier title? Or is it plain kinky? I went into the theatre wondering what I was in for, and I’m happy to report that fans of desi-style South Korean actioners are in for a treat: Huma Qureshi playing a deaf-mute contract killer comes up with an implacable stare, and a weapon hiding in plain sight, as she goes about decimating her victims one after another, getting support from a solid ensemble. The grey-blue screen, the acid rain, the frequent pull-backs to give us a panoramic view of Mumbai at night, people clawing their way up in chawls and high-rises, and the things they do in the dark when no one’s looking: in this Sion-via-Seoul aesthetic which the film commits to completely, no punches are pulled, and the pace rarely flags.

We often underestimate the power that comes with having a backup plan. This is probably what people with standbys feel when they get cheated on. Or what folks with a lucrative job offer in their pocket think to themselves when they’re presented with peanuts during appraisal season. Having a backup plan affords you the agency you normally wouldn’t have in everyday life. But as immensely privileged a responsibility as reviewing movies may be, it often leaves you without a plan B. And where there is no plan B, there is no power. For two, sometimes three hours, you’re at the mercy of whatever is projected in front of you. No running, no hiding, no sneaking into the theatre next door to sacrifice precious brain cells to Cocktail 2 again. These are the thoughts that run through your mind when you watch something like Baby Do Die Do, the new movie starring the otherwise capable Huma Qureshi.

Samant’s film is a slick, playful thriller that knows how to have a good time, in the vein of the worlds of Sriram Raghavan or Vasan Bala. Meet deaf and mute sharpshooter Baby Karmarkar (Huma Qureshi, who also serves as producer, is in fine form). Alongside her “colleague” Manu (a sincere Marudhar Shekhawat), she’s a contract killer who works for a man known as Papa (It’s always good to see Chunky Panday taken seriously as an actor and not forced to squeak his way through some inane comedy). Papa, in turn, works for the nefarious builder Zafar Bhai (Sikander Kher is never not a joy to watch), who has Papa and his team take out any business rivals or minor obstacles to his shady dealings.