Bheed

Bheed
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anubhav Sinha
Written by	Anubhav Sinha Saumya Tiwari Sonali Jain
Story by	Anubhav Sinha
Produced by	Anubhav Sinha
Starring	Rajkummar Rao Bhumi Pednekar Dia Mirza Ashutosh Rana Pankaj Kapur Kritika Kamra
Cinematography	Soumik Mukherjee
Edited by	Atanu Mukherjee
Music by	Anurag Saikia
Production company	Benaras Media Works
Distributed by	AA Films
Release date	24 March 2023 (2023-03-24)
Running time	114 minutes[1]
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Box office	₹3.33 crore[2]

Bheed (transl. Crowd) is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language social drama film^[3] directed, co-written and produced by Anubhav Sinha as a fictional story set in the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in India.^[4] It stars Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra.^[5][6]

Filming commenced in October 2021 and ended in December 2021. It was released on 24 March 2023 to positive reviews, but became a financial failure.^[7][8] At 69th Filmfare Awards, the film received four nomination, including Best Film (Critics) and Best Actor (Critics) for Rao.^[9]

Bheed is a fictitious account of the largest migration in Indian history (since the 1947 partition) during the quarantine in 2020. It tells the story of how several characters deal with the lockdown and migrate to a safe place.

• Rajkummar Rao as Inspector Surya Kumar Singh Tikas
• Bhumi Pednekar as Renu Sharma
• Dia Mirza as Geetanjali
• Ashutosh Rana as Inspector Subhash Yadav
• Pankaj Kapur as Balram Trivedi
• Kritika Kamra as Reporter Vidhi Prabhakar
• Aditya Shrivastav as Ram Singh
• Veerendra Saxena as Hari Dubey
• Harsh Purwar as Gonu
• Omkar Das Manikpuri
• Mahesh Chandra Deva
• Shushil Pandey as Kanhaiyya

The music of the film is composed by Anurag Saikia. The first single titled "Herail Ba" was released on 21 March 2023.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 16 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10.^[11]

Bheed met to generally positive reviews. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it 4 stars out of five praising the performance of the cast and direction and stating that Bheed makes its point. Bheed does an admirable job of telling a story - or rather, a number of stories - that simply needed to be told. he also praised director Anubhav Sinha, he said Anubhav Sinha does not hesitate to confront the rot face. Is there anything more thrilling than a filmmaker making a statement and being taken seriously?.^[12]

Film Critic Subhash K. Jha highly praised the film calling it a masterpiece. He Termed Bheed as more than a film. he praised the performance of Pankaj Kapur and Rajkumar Rao and Bhumi. He said in his review that The power dynamics of class and caste in India are better understood and depicted by Anubhav Sinha than any other Indian filmmaker. We owe this superb storyteller who tells it like it is our gratitude only for this. Please accept it or not.^[13][14]

Yatamanyu Narain Of News18 gave the film 4 out of 5 stars. He wrote, "Anubhav Sinha's Bheed might be a film for some but for many, it's bound to be a cathartic journey into the prologue to the darkest chapters of humanity that left the world gasping for air. Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Pankaj Kapur starrer is an important story that dexterously rewinds the time for you and takes you back to that fateful date when India's first lockdown was announced. What followed was a trail of decisions promulgated in view of preventing the outbreak but what it actually did was render thousands of people on a homeward-bound journey with bare necessities in hand. Bheed captured the pathos, pangs, and grief of the marginalized through empathy and compassion tinted-lens."^[15]

Cath Clarke of The Guardian gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. She praised the story and stated that "the caste system serves as the foundation for much of the nation's division and strife, as shown in a gripping, state-of-the-nation drama set in the Covid era of India."^[16]

Anna MM Vetticad writes in the Firstpost. She said that Bheed relates to the dissemination of false information during the pandemic on social media and WhatsApp. Government apathy to the misery of the populace, especially the impoverished, looms large in the background without being explicitly stated. But neither is the main focus of the movie. Bheed focuses on the social rift that emerges even when a tragedy is playing out, namely racism stemming from the upper caste, upper-class avarice, and religion.^[17]

Archika Khurana of The Times of India gave 3.5 stars out of 5. She stated Anubhav Sinha accurately captures the pain endured by hundreds of people in his movie depiction of a particular stage of the pandemic and makes it not an easy watch.^[18]

Davesh Shrama of Filmfare also gave 3.5 stars out of 5. He praises the film and write in his review that The movie highlights the plight of the oppressed while also highlighting the stark religious, racial, and caste divide that still exists in our nation. The director doesn't mince words. He doesn't engage in melodrama either.^[19]

Abhimanyu Mathur of DNA praises the lead actors performance and direction. He said in his review that Bheed is a sobering and challenging to watch account of the migrants' plight during the initial lockdown. Nonetheless, it raises questions about how fleeting human memory is. These are events that have happened around us in the last three years. And yet, despite the highest level of documentation of everything that occurs worldwide, these atrocities remain unremembered. That is Bheed's biggest triumph. For those who were most negatively impacted by the lockdowns, it is able to recapture the stark hardness of those times. For a change, those who were battling for their lives are the only thing everybody is talking about.^[20]

• Bheed at IMDb