Manoj Bajpayee is no stranger to awards and honours and adding another feather to his cap is the recent recognition that he has received at the 67th National Film Awards by winning, Best Actor for his film Bhonsle, which launched on the OTT platform SonyLIV earlier in June 2020. It would be apt to say, that Manoj Bajpayee owned the title character.
The actor plays an ill-retired cop who believes in taking the right route rather than the easy one. Sinking into the skin of the character, Manoj Bajpayee is surely convincing in and as Bhonsle. The film is an honest exploration of the lower-middle class locals vs immigrant clashes. The story revolves around a retired cop, Bhonsle who isn't adjusting well to post-service life, living alone in a ramshackle chawl populated with both migrants and locals.
The film portrays how a terminally ill and retired Bhonsle, finds himself forging an unlikely companionship with a 23-year-old North-Indian girl and her little brother. In this, he finds the right reason to fight his last battle against the boisterous issue of insider - outsider in Mumbai. Director Devashish Makhija uses a slow pace of narration to portray the monotony of Bhonsle’s life as well as his gradually deteriorating condition. From the sets to the music, everything in the movie depicts despair and the tight frames create a sense of claustrophobia within the setting of a chawl.