Sunday, January 13, 2013

Whodunit turns horror!


The prime strength of a perfect whodunit lies in the fact that how far a regular movie going audience can relate to its climax and how much of a complex plot it carries throughout..alas! Talaash fails in these departments.

Mumbai we have seen before,nothing like 'never before'...the dark lanes inhabited by sassy prostitutes,the tough khaki policeman, the upper class section with lower level morals, hopeless pimps aka top class informers, getting acts straight either by omission or commison,railway quarters with cotton sari decked housewives!

Its an intelligently structured and a very well crafted film (art director Sharmista Roy and Cinematographer K.U.Mohanan deserves mention) ,Reema swiftly transcends her genre from psychological thrill to edgy paranormal 'life after death' thrill, almost akin to a Manoj Night Shyamalan mould,though she tries too hard to make a cord with metaphors (Aamir’s mouthing 'talaash' frequently,a film with drowning people goes tad disappointingly in sync with lines like 'dard mein doobe huye'!), but alas, those turn out to be too obvious even for the aam janta...

Its a good film, no doubt, at least a one time watch, but the problem with the film lies in the fact that unlike some of the well made thrillers of our time (Gupt, 100 days, Kahaani) ,in Talaash,u don't care about the case, or any of the characters: neither the cop, the wife, pimp, kid or the streetwalker! the inner psyche of the characters seems too indulgent,while the basic premise of the film turning out to be a revenge drama before the reel comes to an end!
The technical department of the film deserves mention for creating a significant flair while creating an ambience going well with the theme of the film..dark, edgy, suspense! while coming out of the theater,u carry along with u just one person... Nawazuddin Siddiqui !! one hell of an actor who never cease to surprise us!

2 comments:

  1. I agree with your thoughts and I do second that it is a well crafted movie, but my problem lies is in the transition from a crime/mystery to a ghostly conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. exactly Shrikant, the climax and the mystery ruined the otherwise fine film

    ReplyDelete