Class of ’83: Another refreshing offering by Netflix, slightly decriminalizing it’s recent record of problematic content

Much earlier in the film, Inspector Vijay Singh (Bobby Deol) is shown in conversation with his coworker Raghav Desai (Joy Sengupta), where he makes a remark on the state of the Indian Police System saying, “Departmental Politics aur corruption se anchuye hain abhi ye academy ke officer”. This one line is enough to give you a glance of what lies ahead; determination and will to be useful for the country, dampened with lucrative offers of corruption helmed by the bigger lot of the police force. 

Class of ’83 is a story narrated by Aslam, a police officer in the making, who turned up to be an assassin working for the force, with four others thanks to Vijay Singh, his dean in the Class of 1983. Dean Vijay Singh wants to train these theoretically left behind cadets and make them useful in bringing down the corrupt bureaucracy. All goes well, until these five slowly start segregating with some of them falling prey to the illegal baits laid out for them. 

There’s nothing much to really analyze and take note of, in this relatively shorter 90 min film, if you glance through. But if you manage to look closely, you will see this film lacks defamation of the police force despite targeting their wrongdoings. For me, managing to do this efficiently without ignoring the circumstances that lead to officers washing their hands in bad blood, is what make Class of ’83 remarkable for me.

The film is set in Mumbai and typically, the officers here deal with bringing down terrorist Kalsekar, who doesn’t show his face before the end, but when he does it is hard to look past the simplicity and ease with which these officers bring him down, leaving me wondering if that was quite possible in the first half of the film itself. The entire show then, seems unnecessary because without any change in the initial and final details, Kalsekar is conveniently caught in the end. 

The acting performances are another thing that this film can be remembered by. Bobby Deol is surprisingly adequate in his role, and even though he might strike like an odd choice, he isn’t. 

To conclude, Class of ’83 can be a good weekend plan, if you have some time to spare and have nothing else on your mind.