Crime Today News
It’s been a while since Nawazuddin Siddiqui was in a film worthy of his protean talent. Costao won’t rank high in Siddiqui’s career, but it works as a placeholder until a more fulfilling project comes along.
In the ZEE5 release, Siddiqui plays a character similar to Majmudar from Raees (2017) – an honest government officer unafraid to go up against powerful adversaries. Sejal Shah’s film is based on the real-life Customs officer Costao Fernandes, who paid a heavy price for trying to prevent gold smuggling in Goa in the 1990s.
In the film, Costao (Siddiqui) takes on the racketeer D’Mello (Kishore) but faces serious trouble after he accidentally kills D’Mello’s brother Peter (Hussain Dalal). D’Mello swears revenge. Costao and his wife Maria (Priya Bapat) are hounded. Central Bureau of Investigation officer Sameer (Gagan Dev Riar) matches D’Mello in villainy.
The screenplay by Bhavesh Mandalia and Meghna Srivastava explores a generic story of honesty under pressure, rather than saying anything specific about the hero’s tormentors or the evolution of smuggling in Goa. The Hindi-language film is filled with non-Goan actors passing off as Goan, a lack of local detailing beyond cottages and beaches, and dodgy accents – Kishore’s D’Mello is particularly grating.
The movie identifies Costao early on as an inspiring multi-tasking maverick rather than a possibly rash government officer with an attitude problem. Only in his relationship with his beleaguered wife do we get some character building, the suggestion that Costao’s crusade serves only him well.
Maria is halfway between nag and naysayer, putting an onerous burden on the lovely Priya Bapat. The film is a Nawazuddin Siddiqui show, with some scene-stealing by a perfectly odious Gagan Dev Riar.
Siddiqui doesn’t sound anything like a Fernandes, but he’s always compelling to watch, especially in the blackly comic scenes. With a less indifferent screenplay and more attentive direction, the film might have been a vivid portrait of crime in Goa. Instead, Costao is a formulaic tale of a government official becoming a victim of the system he has sworn to uphold.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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