With the cinema theatres still shut down, OTT platforms have been the primary source of entertainment for movie aficionados. Apart from the numerous web series that all of us have been gorging on, some movies have also been released on Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hotstar etc. The previous weekend saw the release of "Raat Akeli Hai" on Netflix & yet again Radhika Apte features in it. This has already spawned trolls, however the trailer promised it to be a gritty murder mystery.
Thakur Raghubeer Singh (Khalid Tyabji), an influential patriarch from an affluent background was found murdered on the night of his wedding to his mistress, Radha (Radhika Apte). Incidentally, his wife was also murdered along with their driver five years earlier. The case was entrusted to Inspector Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) & it soon dawned upon him that each and every member of the khandan was not beyond suspicion as they had more than ample shades of grey to their character. So who had eliminated Thakur in such a ghastly manner & were both the murders interconnected???
This is the debut venture of Honey Trehan & he has opted to create a dark movie which isnt exactly unfamiliar territory for him as he has worked extensively with Vishal Bharadwaj. Along with Smita Singh, who had scripted this slow burning engaging whodunnit they give us a full blown picture of a dysfunctional family where the males reigns supreme while the females are relegated to meek onlookers who remains helpless on the face of injustice meted out to them, Even the protagonist harbors a superiority attitude against the women & is opinionated on the basis of their attire as well. Honey tries to infuse humour into the proceedings through the interaction between Ila Arun & Nawazuddhin and does tickle the funny bone at times in an otherwise sober movie. Most of the scenes happen in the dark & Pankaj Kumar captures those visuals impressively while Sneha Khanwalkar's music was average and Sreekar Prasad could have made it crisper.
Nawazuddin nails his role & though it wasn't challenging by his standards, he manages to capture the swag and stubbornness of the character aptly. There is hardly any Indian production on Netflix that does not feature Radhika Apte and we can't blame them for that since she effectively conveyed the frustration & anger that Radha had for her circumstances without having to mouth dialogues. Being a casting director, Honey has a keen eye for talent & it was evident in his choice of artists be it Aditya Srivastva, Ila Arun, Tigmanshu Dhulia etc, all of whom have done their parts well.
Verdict: Though not the remake of "Knives Out", the manner in which the story is constructed with each character being a possible suspect gives us that impression. It is gripping and manages to capture our attention, though I felt that it had the potential to be much more damdaar. Anywaz do check it out!!!
Rating: 3.5/5
Regards...Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment