Batla House


Batla House is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film written by Ritesh Shah and directed by Nikkhil Advani. Inspired by the 2008 Batla House encounter case that took place on 19 September 2008, the film stars John Abraham in the lead role. His character, Sanjay Kumar, is inspired by Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, the police officer who played a crucial role in the encounter. The story showcases the encounter and in its aftermath, Sanjay's struggle to catch the fugitives and prove the encounter wasn't a fake one, while dealing with nationwide hatred and posttraumatic stress disorder.
The film was theatrically released in India on 15 August 2019 during Independence Day weekend. It became commercially successful at the box office.

Plot

Sanjay Kumar is informed that his team have cornered 5 university students in L-18, Batla House, who might have been involved in the 13 September 2008 Delhi bombings, the responsibility for which was claimed by the terrorist organisation "Indian Mujahideen". Sanjay orders not to engage until he arrives, but a restless K.K. proceeds with some officers. Sanjay arrives and upon hearing the gunshots, decides to engage. The building is cleared, and K.K. is found shot down. Sanjay enters the room and there's more shooting, as a result of which 2 students end up dead, 2 escape and 1 is arrested alive. Sanjay now starts facing the heat from media and politicians who start billing the encounter as a fake one. They're joined by the whole nation in condemning the Delhi Police and everyone starts demanding justice for the students who were supposedly killed to account for the bombings. Sanjay's wife Nandita, a news anchor, is however unwilling to accept this and decides to stay with Sanjay, who soon becomes diagnosed with Posttraumatic stress disorder, frequently hallucinating about getting shot by the terrorists. Nandita somehow stops him whenever he becomes suicidal.
Sanjay now starts looking for the 2 terrorists that escaped, and finds one of them to hiding in Nizampur. Sanjay is informed by his senior that he would be awarded for the encounter and that he must celebrate. Realizing he's not been told where to celebrate, he heads to Nizampur where he manages to find Dilshad, one of the fugitives. Everyone tries to stop Sanjay, who chases, beats up and almost arrests Dilshad, only to be cornered by the politicians and public who let him escape but without Dilshad. After being awarded the President Medal, Sanjay begins his hunt again and this time, through Dilshad's girlfriend Huma, tricks him into coming to Nepal. He teams up with his officers once again, and sends a van to pick up Dilshad, as a part of his plan. The latter, however, sends someone else to check for anything suspicious. Sanjay runs to stop his officers from engaging upon realizing Dilshad's not in the van and lets it flee. Learning of nothing suspicious, Dilshad informs the van driver he'd depart the next day, and upon landing in Nepal, is stopped, thrashed and arrested by Sanjay and his team.
The court proceedings begin, where the opposing lawyer brings up arguments to counter Sanjay's truth and a parallel story of fake encounters, as per which K.K. and his men brought the students in L18, tortured and decided to kill them when they were ordered not to do so, following which K.K. was shot by one of his officers. Sanjay, however, brings out the truth that actually his officers had been closely watching the students and realized they belonged to the Indian Mujahideen. The real shootout then plays out, showcasing K.K. and his team engaging when the students fire, and the very fact that K.K. died gives Sanjay's argument a strong support when he tells everyone that no officer has ever died in a fake encounter. His arguments convince the court to sentence the 2 terrorists to life imprisonment, while the last one somehow escapes the country.
While sections of the media still oppose the ruling and believe the police to be culprits, a video clip that surfaced in 2016 featured a confession from the terrorist who had escaped the encounter, about he managed to do so and later join the ISIS, further confirming the credibility of the encounter.

Cast

In May 2018, Nikkhil Advani announced the film with John Abraham, to be based on Operation Batla House of 2008. The film was to be shot in Delhi, Lucknow, Mussoorie, Mumbai, Jaipur and Nepal starting in September 2018 in span of 50 days. Ravi Kishan and Nora Fatehi joined the cast of Batla House in November 2018. The film was wrapped in the second week of February in 2019.

Marketing and release

The makers of Batla House released the trailer of the film on 10 July 2019. The trailer was launched at an event that was organised in Mumbai with the presence of the star cast of the film, John Abraham and Mrunal Thakur along with Nora Fatehi and the director of the film, Nikkhil Advani.
The film was released on 15 August 2019 along with Mission Mangal.

Soundtrack

The songs are composed by Rochak Kohli, Tanishk Bagchi, Taz and Ankit Tiwari. Lyrics written by Tanishk Bagchi, Gautam Sharma, Gurpreet Saini and Prince Dubey. The first song "O Saki Saki" is a version of the song "Saaki Saaki" from the film Musafir. The song "O Saki Saki" was launched on 15 July 2019. "O Saki Saki" has become a TikTok trend as of June 2020 with users doing the dance. Fans want top stars Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae to dance to the song on TikTok.
One song of the film which was removed from the final cut was released later as single as it didn't go well with the narrative of the film. That was the song "Gallan Goriyan", starring John Abraham and Mrunal Thakur which is a recreated version of the song of same name from the 2000 album "Oh Laila" and was released on 11 June 2020 by T-Series.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4.5 stars out of 5 and called it "one of the finest films of the year" while praising the performances of John Abraham and Ravi Kishan, the action sequences and the screenplay. The Times of India gave it 3.5 stars out of 5 and felt that Abraham delivered "the best of his career" performance, while also praising the action sequences but criticizing the pacing of the second half. Prasanna D Zore writing for Rediff.com gave it 2 stars out of 5 and noted that only second half had gripping moments.

Box office

Batla House earned a decent 19.5 crore nett in India on its opening day. It dropped 50 percent to earn 7.5 crore nett on the second day. On Saturday, the third day, the film's business grew by 30 percent to 9.5 crore nett, for a three-day total of 31.5 crore nett.
, with a gross of 106.80 crore in India and 9.82 crore overseas, the film has grossed 120.62 crore worldwide.

Home video

Batla House was made available as VOD on Prime Video in October 2019.