Murder mysteries or ‘Whodunit’ detective movies have never been ‘The Box-office favourite’ in the history of Hindi Cinema (particularly post the 70s). But being the first Hindi film made on the immensely popular Bengali sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi, created by the renowned writer Saradindu Bandopadhyay, the project did have the excitement factor going in its favour despite the extremely mixed responses to its trailer. Yet, matching the amazing, long lasting impact of the simplistic entertainment provided by Basu Chatterjee/Rajit Kapur’s Doordarshan (Hindi) serial on the Detective (aired in the early 90s) was not an easy task at all. And thats exactly where DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY is sure going to disappoint many dedicates fans of the brilliant TV series in all honesty.
However beginning with an explanation for the tag line stated above, firstly this is another SHANGHAI kind of product delivered by one of my favourite new-age directors Dibakar Banerjee. And by the statement I mean, a film that certainly would get much appreciation from a certain section of viewers looking into the technical and other finer aspects of film-making, but not from the masses who actually turn a project into a big box office success in real terms.
Secondly, here you cannot draw any comparison between the Byomkesh we know from the original books /Bengali films (serials) or the famous Hindi TV series and the one depicted by Dibakar in his film, since they both surprisingly turn out to be completely contrasting personalities to say the least. For instance Dibakar’s Byomkesh is not a brave person at all, who easily throws up seeing blood, open wounds and rotten dead bodies. He gets slapped by a unknown possible client in their first meeting itself, is not able to save himself from the attacking goons with his sharp presence of mind or reflexes, can easily get seduced and also gets caught by an old man within seconds for the few lies spoken about his false identity. So if the original Byomkesh simply won your heart and respect both due to many of his visible qualities, Dibakar’s Bakshi fails to do the same right from his first scene itself getting slapped quite weirdly.
Talking about the experience of watching DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BASKHY with a ‘Y’, the film begins impressively showing the Calcutta of 1942 and the very first thing that makes an instant impact is the splendid recreation of the era having a very fine detailing in the backdrop with people, clothes, trams, shops, boards, posters and streets presented beautifully with the collective effort of its art director and the cinematographer. The reference of World War 2 and Shanghai-Burma-Japan in the build-up sets a fine premise of an exciting journey. And then the mystery of a missing father begins with a sex and political angle thrown in to add some extra spice to the big case taken up by the known Detective.
Having said that, the overall pace and excitement level in the narration remains extremely low and it goes into an even more dull phase post intermission when many dark secrets get slowly revealed heading towards a quite over the top and hamming climax (clearly inspired from the west), not expected from the director like Dibakar Bannerjee. Putting it straight, in the final hour, he takes the movie into a completely different phase with few boringly long sequences, un-required action, exaggerated expressions and an open climax minus any thrilling moments making no impact whatsoever on the common man sitting in the theater willing to see an exciting ending as always expected from a murder mystery.
In fact it’s quite shocking to see such a slow paced, uninspiring detective movie without any enjoyable high points from the director of entertaining films such as LSD, OYE LUCKY! LUCKY OYE and KHOSLA KA GHOSLA. Probably the SHANGHAI hangover of making classics for only a certain section of viewers is still there with the director moving far away from the masses. And I frankly missed the typical ‘Dibakar' touch in the film once again quite sadly.
In the writing department, the sequences begin to drag pretty badly in its second half and the dialogues or language also remains inconsistent as I strongly felt at several instances. For example, at one end you have a fabulous line ‘Sach Ke Aaspaas Wala Jhooth Pakadna Mushkil Hota Hai’ and on the other the sacred river Ganga is strangely referred to as ‘Ganga Maiya’ by a Japanese drug dealer too (or did I hear it wrongly!). Also in the background score, where the naturally added sounds excel, the westerns arrangements and rock tracks keep disturbing a lot. Moreover its always confusing to see the creative team working too hard on recreating the gone era in a period film with all those fabulous sets, costumes, special effects and spoken language. But they repeatedly forget or deliberately ignore to recreate the music of those times too coming up with a similar sound and arrangements using the relevant musical instruments. Incidentally that reminds me the last time, music actually took me back in the late 40s was in HEY RAM composed by the maestro Illaiyaraja or in the latest YRF’s DUM LAGA JE HAISHA too reminding us of the musical 80s and 90s.
No doubt here we have a worth praising production value adding a lot to the film’s overall look and feel, a splendid cinematography (though many might find it too dark) and ‘an appreciable risk’ taken by the courageous director, post his unsuccessful venture SHANGHAI. But if only Dibakar had made it entertaining enough for the end user instead of getting lost in his own creation, the film would have provided a great viewing experience to all Byomkesh Bakshi die-hard fans for sure.
Coming to its weakest point dealing with performances, though Sushant Singh Rajput tries hard and his level best to portray the iconic role, he simply couldn’t deliver due to the badly written character largely deviating from the original persona of the detective as known to the (Hindi) viewers who still remember Byomkesh as Rajit Kapoor with his innocent sweet smile dressed in a simple white attire. On the other hand, Anand Tiwari plays his role with a comfortable ease along with Meiyang Chang and more posing as the co-residents of the lodge. In the female lead both Swastika Mukherjee and Divya Menon get nothing much to do, whereas Neeraj Kabi impresses a lot if only you can ignore his loud acting towards the end.
In all, as was the case in director’s last venture SHANGHAI, this too has its technical excellence right there as an impressive merit. But the film stumbles a lot in its overall execution, a feature we do not usually associate with the name of Dibakar Banerjee. So you can opt for it if really interested in watching the artistic depiction of the 40s more than anything else. And in case that doesn’t excite you at all then watch a few episodes of Basu Chatterjee-Rajit Kapoor TV series on Youtube this weekend or can even try Satyajit Ray’s CHIRIYAKHANA (with Uttam Kumar playing the lead) made on a strange case handled well by our beloved, smart detective created by Saradindu Bandopadhyay.
Rating : 2.5 / 5
(As an important note, I would like to mention that despite having a huge fan following for the Hindi TV series directed by Basu Chatterjee, its really an irony that the serial was never made available in the home video market as a DVD set with a fine HD print (till date). May be any concerned person reading this can do something about it for we all true fans of the detective since the 90s.)
Cheers!
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