Poor Rajeev Khandelwal.
Not only is he made to dress up like Sherlock when it’s not Halloween, he’s given the worst of lines and a script so bad that the only known actor in the film, Girish Karnad, insisted on being killed off in the first few minutes.
Khandelwal tries to borrow from both Downey Junior and Cumberbatch and ends up in the region of Cumbered Down Junior Batch. He looks more distressed than excited when he says: “Kem end get reddy for da dilchasp raed!” to bring on the interval point of the film… after he has admitted that he has totally no clue regarding who the killer is.
So what does ace detective Samrat do? He tells all the suspects “I am very close to finding out the killer” because he knows he is dealing with a super stupid killer who will blindly buy his baseless claim.
Even the clues are from elementary school. It’s more a case for the Famous Five if you just need to replace each alphabet with the next in order to read the message. (For instance, HS is code for IT) Yet Samrat works hard on Sherlock-level decoding, as visual effects spell out the alphabets for us to see this decrypting process.
As if borrowing from Arthur Conan Doyle books, Guy Ritchie’s movie franchise and Steven Moffat’s TV series were not enough, the makers also want to use elements of Kill Bill . So there’s a martial arts school, snowfall stunt choreography, a tune from the film that becomes a whistle in addition to the Sherlock Holme-age.
The plot is so convoluted for the sake of mystery that the makers themselves lose count of who did what and why after a while.
The only mystery in the film is: Why would the makers keep referring to the hero Samrat Tilakdhari and his sidekick Chakradhari Pandey as STD and CD respectively?
Maybe it’s a clue and not a joke.
Maybe Samrat & Co is telling you it’s your “call” if you want to go to the theatre for STD or just wait for CD to come!
RJHO HS. Go figure
Genre: Thriller
Director: Kaushik Ghatak
Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal, Girish Karnad, Madalsa Sharma, Gopal Datt
Storyline: Detective Samrat is called to investigate the mystery of the dying garden and an ailing patriarch & boom, the old man’s dead.
Bottomline: Wannabe Sherlock but elementary really
