November is here & this month boasts of some impressive movies lined up that I have been eagerly looking forward to for quite a while. Among them is "Ittefaq" which has hit the screens this weekend & has got Akshaye Khanna in the lead along with Siddharth Malhotra & Sonakshi Sinha. Interestingly, it is produced by SRK & Karan Johar among others; & from the looks of it, it seems like a stylized murder mystery. So will it do justice to the genre that it proclaims & give our money's worth???
The story unfolds on a rainy Mumbai night with the police hot on the heels of Vikram Sethi (Siddharth Malhotra), acclaimed writer based in Britain; for the suspected murder of his wife. He had flown down to Mumbai along with his wife for the launch of his second book, but before that event could materialize, his wife gets murdered in the hotel. Naturally Vikram was the prime suspect & that argument bore weight when he evade the polices. He eventually meets with an accident & seeks shelter in an upscale apartment which belonged to the lawyer, Shekhar & his wife, Maya (Sonakshi Sinha). Soon enough, the police tracks him down & discover Shekhar being murdered in the residence. The case was entrusted upon Inspector Dev Verma (Akshaye Khanna) & he had to solve both the murders in the span of three days. Even though, the initial circumstantial evidence painted Vikram to be the culprit; it wasnt exactly an open & shut case especially since both Vikram & Maya narrated different versions as to what transpired in the apartment. So were both the murders mere coincidence or was it connected???
The project has been helmed by debutant Abhay Chopra, who as some of you guys might have suspected belongs to the famed Chopra lineage. So it's quite natural for him to be influenced by his accomplished relatives which might be the reason why he had decided to remake Yash Chopra's (uncle) "Ittefaq" (1969). The basic premise is the same except for a couple of changes that Abhay has incorporated in the screenplay. Even though it has a running time of just 107 minutes, the early part is rather sluggish as the script fails to impart the urgency. However, the latter half picks up the pace & culminates in a predictable yet thrilling climax. Michal Luka's frames were exquisite while Nithin Baid's editing could have been crisper.
Akshaye Khanna was fantastic as the cop which he underplays it convincingly both in his body language & dialogue delivery. The same cant be said about the other two leads namely Siddharth & Sonakhi. The former looked rather unsure early on & lacked conviction, but from the second half onwards he was bang on in conveying his emotions. However, Sonakshi's role didnt quite have any variations which meant it was a rather one dimensional performance that wont make the audience connect.
Verdict: The genre & lack of huge stars, invariably means it will be a slow mover at the box office. Whatever it manages to garner will be solely based on whether the audience were hooked onto the murder mystery. Frankly speaking, it's a movie that deserves praise for the effort it has gone into it as it will surely interest the audience for large parts. In short, give it a try!!!
Rating: 2.75/5
Regards...Ben
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