First time I watched a movie on the day of it’s release. The credit has to go to Lalit Suri who has been writing movie reviews for AskLaila and I have been following them closely. Next credit goes to friend Geetika who agreed to come along. That ensures that even if movie is not good, you can at least chat in the show. My daughter Srashti is my usual company for movie watching but that ensures that I watch mostly kid’s movies.
So let us come back to the movie. The banner is big but actors are rather unknown. Sushant Rajput was the only known guy for me. This movie takes you back by seventy years and set in Kolkatta. You look at the dresses, the vehicles on the road, the ads on the walls, the way vessels are all over the place in a courtyard, the constant smoke all over the place, the changeover of time is detailed as well as accurate ( not that I was born in those times ).
Coming to story, this is a well knit story. It engages you every minute and you will not even realize how over two hours go. It gives you clues to guess the next move and then something unveils to break all the assumptions you would have made. It invites you to become curious and then it just surrounds you with lots of characters and some characters which might take you an orthogonal direction also. Overall a very engaging plot and it grows on you as the movie progresses.
One of the best part of this movie is that it sticks to it’s topic always. No item numbers, no love affairs to take your focus away from the main story. Something which is mostly lacking in Indian movies. Background music adds on to the story but in some patches it used english language which made it sound out of context. But background music plays an important role in maintaining the pace of the movie. All the actors have done good justice to their roles though it was a bit of over acting by lady playing Angoori Devi. Sushant fits into the role very well. Another interesting aspect is that the background is Bengal but most of the characters are shown without the accent.
The movie ends on a rather violent and non-inspiring way. I think they could have come up with better ending. It does leave scope for a sequel though.
PS: It is a good idea to go with a friend and play the guessing game on what might happen next. Atleast that is what I did during the movie and it was fun.
PPS: Highly recommended for sure