Movie Breakdown: The White Tiger

Pre-Screening Stance:

I like the look of The White Tiger, but I have to admit I’m a little put off by the fact that the last Ramin Bahrani-directed film was the pretty dang terrible Fahrenheit 451 (back in 2018 for HBO). Fingers crossed that this is not that.

Post-Screening Ramble:

The economic fallout from the pandemic has seemingly put more eyes than ever before on the haves and have-nots of the world, so in that regard, The White Tiger couldn’t be more relevant. It follows Balram (Adarsh Gourav), a young, lower-caste man who is destined to grind out a living in a little Indian town called Laxmangarh. This “fate” isn’t quite to his liking though, so he packs up, moves to Delhi and gets a job as a driver for a wealthy family. Only, it’s not quite that easy for Balram – he has to scheme a bit to get in good with the Stork family, then a little more to land a coveted promotion, and it just continues to escalate from there, especially when he gets wise to the fact that his rich employers stay rich via their own nefarious plotting.

When The White Tiger is hyper-focused on Balram’s rise through the ranks, it works really well. These parts, which thankfully make up the majority of the film, feel inspired by Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and offer some clever social commentary. They also feature a really nice turn from Gourav. His Balram isn’t exactly the best person, but Gourav gives such a spirited performance that it’s hard to not root for him. The film, however, does have too much fat on it, which causes it to occasionally drag and holds it back from being great. Balram narrates his tale, but it’s entirely unnecessary and is often jarring. Additionally, the movie tries to do too much in its closing moments – enough so that it made me think it might have been worked better as a mini-series.

I do think The White Tiger is definitely worth seeing, but don’t be surprised if you have a few moments where you check and see how much is left to go on its two-hour runtime. The film will land on Netflix this Friday.

One Last Thought:

I kept waiting for Queen’s I Want To Break Free to show up in this film, and I was a tiny bit disappointed when it didn’t. There should be a rule that if you use a really great song in the trailer for your movie, then you have to find a place for it somewhere in said movie (even if it’s just during the credits).