Genre: Drama
Streaming on: Netflix
Duration: 128 minutes
A story of an entrepreneur who built himself up from a poor village dweller to an owner of his own taxi firm.
Balram, as a child, is intelligent and is told he is like a white tiger, this is someone who comes only once in a generation. He is offered a scholarship to a school in Delhi, but as his father is unable to pay the village Landlord and Balram is made to work.
As an adult Balram is fed up with his life, he aspires to be a chauffeur and when the village landlord’s son returns from the USA, Balram sees an opportunity.
He manages to get the job as the second drive for Ashok and his New York raised wife Pinky. When he finds out the first driver is a Muslim, he uses this information to have him sacked so he can climb up the hierarchy. He drives Ashok, Pinky and Ashok’s brother to Delhi and this is where things get out of hand.
On a night out Pinky has been drinking and insists on driving the car, whilst doing so she runs over a child. The family convince Balram in taking the fall for the murder and he signs a confession. Pinky cannot take it anymore and leaves to go back to New York. Balram uses this time to his advantage and starts charging Ashok for expenses he hasn’t even incurred.
Balram’s nephew is sent to stay with him and in a daze Balram does the unthinkable, he murders Ashok and takes his money. With this is opens his own taxi service in Bangalore, this is where he treats his workers not as servants but as employees. He as also changed his name to Ashok Sharma which is both a nod to his master and an insult at the same time.
The White Tiger is a brilliant film about the caste system and how people are treated differently in India depending on which caste they are born into.
Priyanka Chopra plays her role very well as Pinky where she acts like the Indian American that we now know her as and Adarsh Gourav is brilliant as Balram, convincing us that he is a kind-hearted man who was just born into the wrong caste. It’s the dark twist where he makes his money from that really changes your mind about him.
