A Thursday (2022)

A young playschool teacher, Naina Jaiswal (Yami Gautam Dhar), returns prematurely from her sick leave to resume her responsibilities but soon afterwards, surprises everyone by taking 16 children hostage in the school. She demands for Rs. 5 crores, supercop Inspector Javed Khan (Atul Kulkarni) to be her point of contact for negotiations, and a meeting with the Prine Minister, Maya Rajguru (Dimple Kapadia). On the one hand, Naina is the affectionate and doting school teacher, and on the other, she is a gun toting, tough speaking terrorist who will stop at nothing to get her demands fulfilled.Initially baffled by the sudden developments, police lunges into action and nabs every connection of Naina possible to make any headway and find a solution. But Naina won’t relentl until she got a private meeting with the prime minister. The truth slowly starts unravelling about how Naina suffered from depression earlier, and that could possibly be the reason behind her irrational behaviour.A Thursday isn’t a remarkable story or execution but is quite a thought-provoking subject. It starts off with the hostage situation pretty early on, but then the proceedings start dragging, making the film run as if with the handbrake of a vehicle were kept on. The real motive of Naina’s strange action takes a long time to be revealed by when most people would have gauged the reason. In spite of that, director Behzad Khambata doesn’t fail to drive home an important point. The film has some intense acting by Yami Gautam Dhar, sound performances by Dimple Kapadia and Atul Kulkarni, and leaves ample scope for interpreting if Naina and Javed actually acted in partnership to give the act a successful conclusion. When pleas, requests, and demands for justice fall on deaf ears, it’s perhaps time to take up the cudgel yourself.