The Game is afoot
Film: Samrat and co.
Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal, Gopal Dutt
Directed by: Kaushik Ghatak
Duration: 2 hrs 5 mins
Rating: * *
Inspired by Sherlock Holmes (the character and the film)
Samrat and co. belongs to the now almost extinct genre in Hindi cinema of
who-dun-it. The result is not exhilarating but let’s just say, the other films
that I saw this week were worse than this one. Like in life and science,
relativity applies to cinema as well.
Dedicated to Arthur Conan Doyle the opening is a blatant rip
off of the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes, later on there is inspiration
from the t.v. series Sherlock as well. Samrat Tilakdhari (Rajeev Khandelwal)
aka STD is a detective who can make deductions like the famed sleuth. His
Watson is not in strictly in the traditional fashion, he is more of a comic
character in the David Burke rather than Edward Hardwicke mould.
A pretty girl (Madalsa Sharma) comes to him for help; her
father’s garden is dying because the gardener had cursed it. Soon, not only the
garden, but the father also dies, he is murdered and our Holmes has to solve
the mystery as the body count steadily increases.
The problem is that the film cannot find its own footing.
There is a bit of this and a bit of that, including an episode inspired by Speed
and the finale is clumsy to say the least.
The only reason you sit through it is to find out how the story will
untangle but there is no great pay off.
Mysteriously enough, the heroine wears short dresses in
Shimla.
Rajeev Khandelwal in the lead role is earnest but doesn’t
make a strong impression. Gopal Dutt (The Week That Wasn’t fame) as his
sidekick fits the bill.
This desi Holmes is passable; I would rather wait for Byomkesh
Bakshi now.
Published in The Navhind Times on 27th Apr 2014
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