Giving you the good news first, the new ITTEFAQ is not exactly a remake of Yash Chopra’s much appreciated classic of 1969 with the same title. Probably the reason for that is the fact that BR Films ITTEFAQ itself was an unofficial inspired version of an English film SIGNPOST TO MURDER (1964) directed by George Englund based on the original play written by Monte Doyle. And it seems the makers decided to play it safe avoiding any immediate foreign claims rewriting the complete film. Therefore, the status of the cult suspense drama remains untouched or intact and the new version is not even close to the courageous film made in the late 60s.
As a thriller, debutant director Abhay Chopra’s ITTEFAQ begins well but fails to build any highly engaging narrative post the first 10 minutes following a ‘Rashomonic’ kind of approach introducing its limited characters. It keeps moving at a slower, uninteresting pace that is not supposed to be a feature of a taut crime drama or a murder mystery. As a viewer, one doesn’t feel involved with any of the characters on screen and you can easily blame the flawed writing and all unimpressive performers for the same, except Akshaye Khanna. In fact, where both Sonakshi and Sidharth fail to make any kind of solid impact throughout the film, its only Akshaye who brings in the few brighter moments at regular intervals before the pace makes a comeback in its revealing climax. However, here too the ending is designed in such a typically predictable manner that you are forced to make the obvious guess ruining the entire thrill.
Thankfully a song-less film (as its original), ITTEFAQ doesn’t come up with any innovative background score too that could have helped a lot. Shot as a dark thriller, it actually never appears to be the same with a not so gripping story progression, big loopholes in the mystery and poor investigations carried on by the assigned police officer.
In all, at just 107 minutes, ITTEFAQ isn’t any exciting or entertaining whodunit suspense drama, getting big mileage or publicity from its status of being an official remake of the beyond comparison 1969 film. So you can go for it, only if you are a keen follower of this particular genre or a fan of Akshaye Khanna and that’s it.
Rating : 2 / 5
(Note: The article was also published on UC-News Mobile App in November 2017)
Beyond The Review
Strongly promoted as the remake of Yash Chopra’s 1969 film, this actually seems to be a PR gimmick played by the makers to gain an instant attention, since the film is not any exact remake of its experimental original, which was itself an inspired version of SIGNPOST TO MURDER (1969)
The new ITTEFAQ is a completely re-written script taking the basic premise of the much appreciated Rajesh Khanna starrer and cannot exactly be called as an dedicated remake.
Probably the makers followed this strategy since BR Films had already suffered another case of plagiarism filed by 20th Century Fox against their still unreleased film BANDA YEH BINDAAS HAI which was being made as an unofficial copy of the English hit MY COUSIN VINNY. Hence playing it safe they went for a fresh script woven around the same plot and then used the ‘remake tag’ in the promotions as a clever marketing strategy that worked well.
However in order to present it as a different film, they actually killed everything that was great and beautiful in the ‘inspired original’ and thus cannot be recommended as any taut, engaging thriller or an entertaining murder mystery. So you can watch it only if you are die-hard fan of this particular genre or Akshay Khanna as an underrated actor not given much opportunities to prove himself on the screen.
Cheers!
Tags :
Ittefaq Beyond The Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, Ittefaq Remake of old classic, Ittefaq (1969), Signpost To Murder (1964), Inspired Movies, Copied Films, Inspired Hindi films From English Crime Thrillers
