Bagher Bachcha: Bandits with a cause

Bagher Bachcha. Photo: Collected

The intriguing scene takes place in a kitchen
A person wearing a tiger mask stops filming on his camera and starts looking for food. When he has just started eating with great enthusiasm, he gets scolded by another man wearing the same mask. 

This is the opening scene from the short crime thriller, "Bagher Bachcha," which is the latest addition to the acclaimed television short film series, "Dakatia Bashi." Each short in this series is based on a separate bandit story. 

It is quite unusual for a crime thriller to open with such a funny scene, and thus it leaves the audience captivated right away.  

Set in a remote area, as the film proceeds, it gets even more interesting, when the group of bandits or, more like a poor people's 'Robinhood', attacks the house of the mayor (Shahiduzzaman Selim) accusing him of corruption. The masked bandits who call themselves 'Bagher Bachcha' usually rob the houses of the rich and corrupt individuals to find proof  of their corruption to bring them to justice. 

They look for evidence of the mayor's corruption, based on information provided by an informant (Khairul Basar), who is also part of their team. They can't find anything and with the passage of time, an altercation arises among the bandits. They begin to wonder whether the information was even true or false. The situation heats up between the bandits and they eventually find what they are looking for, but the story doesn't end here. The film ends with a twist that will put a smile on your face.

The cinematographer Barkat Hosain Polash did an amazing job in some scenes. The light and shadow work are brilliant in the film. 

The long take of the characters running behind a fence highlights Barkat's skills as cinematographer. The whole night light ambiance of the short film was created remarkably, which is rare in most Bangladeshi films.

However, there is always room for improvement, which brings us to the flashback scenes. The present day scenes do not look very different from the past. In certain scenes, the transition from the present to the past is quite perplexing for audiences.

Directed by Goutam Koiri, "Bagher Bachcha" features the award-winning actor Shahiduzzaman Selim who was outstanding in his character, and the young and talented Khairul Basar in lead, along with Deepak Suman and Jahangir Alam and other theatre actors who played the various supporting roles. 

This promising bunch of actors have done an incredible job with their characters. Though Khairul Basar carried his character wonderfully, his local dialect slid away from the character, while all the other actors delivered their dialogues perfectly in the local dialect. We expect a better job with dialect from Khairul Basar in the future.

The film is worth watching. "Bagher Bachcha," was released on the OTT platform, Chorki on 16 September. The run-time of this short film is 29 minutes 34 seconds.