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The White Tiger Movie Review

The White Tiger is a 2021 crime drama film directed by Ramin Bahrani and starring Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra. It is a phenomenal movie.

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“Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love

or do we love them behind the facade of loathing?“

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A rich Indian family’s ambitious driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top as an entrepreneur. This is one of the films that surprised me the most in quite a while as I hadn’t expected such a full package of laughter, crime and sophisticated drama. This is a Netflix movie made in Hollywood, but it is Indian entirely in its stars, most of the production and setting as well as themes. Netflix here struck something truly special and I hope that they get back to Indian movies sooner rather than later.

This is basically what ‘Parasite’ attempted to be, but unsuccessfully so. It is befuddling the kind of praise that that overrated mediocrity got, but this one did not quite receive. It is unfair and honestly ridiculous, but to me this is not only a vastly superior movie, but it’s so great that it just might be one of the best films of 2021, and the year has just started.

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A film about the vast, unfair differences in classes of India, The White Tiger showcases the poorest and the richest of the country and that juxtaposition was truly tragic to witness. It also deals with the master-servant dynamic that unfortunately characterizes the rich people’s relationship with their employees. While comedic at first, the movie did not shy away from portraying the problems of India as they are and how utterly unfair and horrible this caste system is.

The casting here was fantastic. The film was based on a novel and the director wanted to stay as close to the book’s storyline and feel as possible, so the filmmakers even went out and found a new actor from India to play the protagonist, thus fitting so well with the movie’s major theme of a rising star.

And a star he will undoubtedly become or at least should become. Yes, what Adarsh Gourav did here was simply incredible. He is convincing in his every facial expression, emotion and line delivery while he sold both the comedic and the dramatic elements of this role effortlessly.

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Others are also great, but the highlights are clearly Priyanka Chopra and Rajkummar Rao. She is superb in such an interesting role while Rao is amazing as Ashok. He is so handsome and so charismatic that he easily fitted the role of a Hollywood movie star with good looks and huge amounts of money. The character is also rather complex as he is much more modern and humane in his relationship with his employee, but even he showed genuine atrocious sides of his personality and that complexity was very interesting.

That leads me to the highlight of the picture, which is surely the relationship between Ashok and Balram. This dynamic was simply incredible. Exploring the master-slave dynamic in the modern context was fascinating while the sides were changed intriguingly in the second half. Also, seeing Ashok at his most vulnerable was interesting as was Balram’s almost perverse fascination with his boss. The two share this weird psychosexual chemistry that stole the show.

The White Tiger does have too much narration at times, but most of it was very observational and strong. Bahrani’s direction is reliably outstanding, but as a fan of the novel, he may have adapted it too faithfully and it shows in the final product with the third act feeling rushed and even abrupt due to the emphasis to adapt it all in the first half. But those are just minor flaws in an otherwise tremendous film that is beautifully edited, paced, shot and scored. The shift in tone is deftly conveyed as the crime drama elements are fantastic while the first half’s comedic elements are truly something special as the humor is absolutely fantastic and so is the dialogue.

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Life in India is unfair and that is putting it mildly. Fittingly enough, for a movie about the class divide in Indian society, The White Tiger itself received an unfair treatment as this movie is what Parasite unsuccessfully attempted to be, but failed so hard and yet it received more praise bafflingly so. What we have here is a film that changed its tone so deftly in the second half and became something entirely different, but ultimately all of it worked as the comedic elements are hilarious and so much fun while the dramatic elements are fascinating and quite sophisticated. The movie is superbly shot, scored, edited and directed while its dialogue is incredible and the narration is also great, though overwhelming. Priyanka Chopra is so good, Rajkummar Rao is superb and so well cast, and of course Adarsh Gourav is so magnetic and believable that, like the character himself, he will hopefully rise like a star that he deserves to be with this movie. The movie explores the fascinating master-slave dynamic put into modern context in the relationship between the two main men. As the movie’s major asset, that relationship is weirdly psychosexual, complex and just unforgettable.

My Rating – 4.5