Mardaani 3 movie review: Rani Mukerji returns, but familiarity dulls the impact

Cue Shivani’s entry, armed with her faithful helpers, one of them a young woman (Janki Bodiwala) having a hard time finding her head in a workplace overrun by men. Another key character is a young man (Prajesh Kashyap) whose NGO’s stated mission is to rescue street children, and who has been responsible for putting some of the bad ‘uns behind bars. Jisshu Sengupta reprises his role as Shivani’s ultra-supportive spouse who doesn’t mind fixing his own dinner while she leaves the house on her business.

Which is, as in the first two instalments, out in 2015 and 2019, focussed on rescuing young women from fates worse than death. In the line of scary women whose job is to traffic young girls (the last one was Huma Qureshi’s Badi Didi in Delhi Crime 3), the flint-eyed Prasad is vivid, humming a ditty while putting her victims to rest. But some of the unease she generates is blunted by the tacked-on rigmarole about deadly illnesses, viruses, human guinea pigs and greedy medical corporations.

No other character is allowed to be bigger than Roy– understandable as she is the hero of this Yash Raj-produced enterprise–which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Mukerji is a solid actor, and we go along with her as she leads from the front, with everyone else following in her rear. But even she can’t do much with the degree of over-writing and predictable plot-points: when a character says aap rath chalao, aur mujhe saarthi banne do, or words to that effect, we know exactly where this is going, just as we do when too-good-to-be-true characters crop up.

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Shivani gets to deliver the mandatory speech about how girls and women are perpetual victims, and how there will always be brave ones who come to the rescue, which is fine, but the eagerness to frame Mukerji centre-stage– literally in more than one scene– dulls the rest of the enterprise.

Mardaani 3 movie cast: Rani Mukerji, Janki Bodiwala, Mallika Prasad, Prajesh Kashyap, Jisshu Sengupta
Mardaani 3 movie director: Abhiraj Minawala
Mardaani 3 movie rating: Two stars