Traffic (2016 film)

Plot

The story of Traffic, takes place over the course of a single day and is inspired by a real-life incident from Chennai, as shown in the credits. In Pune, superstar Dev Kapoor's daughter is sick and needs an urgent heart transplant. Elsewhere in Mumbai, trainee journalist Rehan meets with an accident and is declared clinically dead. Rehan's parents decide to donate his heart to Dev's daughter. However, rains and low visibility conditions make it impossible to transport the heart by air and the only option is to traverse the 150 km by road. Though initially apprehensive, Joint Traffic Commissioner Raghubir Singh accepts the challenge and seeks a volunteer from among his men to drive at 120 kph, through the busy Mumbai streets. Disgraced traffic constable Godbole (who has just rejoined the force after being suspended for taking a bribe to help his sister) puts up his hand and thus begins the journey. He is joined by Rehan's friend Rajeev and Dr Abel, a surgeon, who is battling his own personal demons.

The movie is a remake of Rajesh Pillai's Malayalam thriller of the same name. Traffic has been released after a long delay. Unfortunately, director Rajesh Pillai died before he could see the fruit of his efforts onscreen.

Cast

The supporting cast includes Ann Zibi, Amit Roy, Manuj Bhaskar, Raj Arjun, Syed Zafar Ali, Leena Panchal, Talib Mehdi,Satyajeet Bhattacharya, Ritika Murthy, Sheron Kurian A., Raj Gopal Iyer, Ritesh Raghuvanshi, Sanjay Gurubaxani, Mohd Rashid Ghaswala, Vijay Sanap, Manish Sharma, Harish Shashi Nair, Santosh Krishnan, Shahrukh B Sadri, Sandeep Singh Chopra, Premchand Singh, Gunjan Khare, Sagar Kale, Avesh Khan, Amit Shukla, Raj Singh, Ajay Arya, Nidha Bhat and Sameer Gogate

Production

Endemol India that has produced several local television shows ventured into feature films, after they acquired the remake rights for the Malayalam film Traffic. Rajesh Pillai who directed the film in Malayalam was retained as director too. Suresh Nair did the Hindi adaptation of the script of Traffic, stating "slight enhancements have been made in the feel and action content, to ensure commercial viability. But the script still remains the brilliant script that the original is".

Manoj Bajpai was signed to play the male lead in April 2013.

Two Bengali actors, Parambrata Chatterjee and Prosenjit Chatterjee were also signed in. The director confirmed that Manoj Bajpai would play the role of a constable, Parambrata Chatterjee would play a doctor and Prosenjit Chatterjee would play a superstar.

Divya Dutta signed the film in August, playing Lena's part from the original.

Amol Parashar, a popular face through ad films, is said to play Asif Ali's character and Malayali actor, Jishnu is said to be playing the role played by Krishna in the original version.

Vishal Singh signed in August and Kitu Gidwani has been given the role of Vishal Singh's mother.

Rajesh Pillai confirmed that Nikita Thukral was roped in for a role, the role played by Sandhya in Malayalam and which was offered to Vishakha first. Richa Panai was roped in in September 2013 and she will be paired with Parambrata in the film. In November 2013, it was reported that Malayali actress Kaveri would reprise the role portrayed by Roma Asrani but that she will portray a mature and introvert personality as opposed to a bubbly Miriam from the original.

Mithoon was signed as the music composer and had already recorded three songs for the film by May 2013.

Pillai stated that the film would be entirely shot on the Mumbai Pune Expressway and Hyderabad. In late August, the first schedule had been completed at Hyderabad. The final schedule started on 2 September at Mumbai.

Critical reception

Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave it 4 stars out of 5, describing film as a well-intentioned movie with fine performances from its ensemble cast. Anna MM Vetticad of Firstpost quoted that it is Needless messaging which spoils this Manoj Bajpayee-starrer. Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave it 2 stars out of 5, and quoted that Crispness and the sense of urgency is missing in movie. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it 4 stars out of 5, describing the film as a fitting swan song: an unmissable film.

Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times gave it 4 stars out of 5, titled that A Tight script, stellar performances make it a must-watch. Prarthna Sarkar of International Business Times gave it 3 stars out of 5, describing it as a must watch. Namarta Joshi of The Hindu quoted 'Traffic' wears thin, feels rushed. There is neither much of an emotional tug nor an edge-of-the-seat urgency that the film promised to deliver. Sukanya Verma from Rediff.com gave it 2 stars out of 5, said movie is muddled and lacklustre in its set-up. Bollywood Hungama gave it 2 stars out of 5. Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in said that the remake of the Malayalam hit loses the essence of the original and movie titled 'Traffic' goes nowhere.

Box office

According to Box Office India, movie collected 3.65 crores in its lifetime on a budget of 9 crores.

Music

Music for Traffic is composed by Mithoon and Shailendra Barve while Lyrics are written by Turaz, Mithoon, Jitendra Joshi & Sayeed Quadri.