2. Rajkummar Rao, Trapped
Stranded and starving in a Bombay apartment, Shaurya is driven to fashioning a catapult from his underwear. He tests its elasticity and then starts working on his aim. At long last, he manages to shoot down a pigeon - that nemesis of the daytime apartment-dweller - and it is only when he succeeds in this hard-fought endeavour that Shaurya expresses the true greatness of his dilemma: the starving man is a vegetarian.
Rao is a spectacular actor, currently going through a Midas streak, shining across several very different films back to back. This year, he has been remarkable in Newton and absolutely spectacular in Bareilly Ki Barfi, but each of those films gave him other fine actors to play off. This film demands that he go it alone, and, in creating a character who is both credible and, ultimately, desperately heroic, he gives us someone to root for as he aims at several small, significant victories.
Some films are made to showcase actors. Rao is himself a showcase.
