Ghanchakkar

My review: Ghanchakkar

After two critically acclaimed movies "Aamir" and "No one killed Jessica", Rajkumar Gupta's latest release is "Ghanchakkar". Title somehow justifies the movie as a whole. Advertised as dark comedy, movie's best oneliners and moments are all revealed in the trailer itself. Hence if one goes in with the expectation of wanting more of those stuff they are bound to get disappointed. Otherwise it is quite an engaging heist thriller with comical elements sprinkled throughout. 

The amount of tension that it builds in the viewers slowly throughout the narration reaches a nadir towards the climax. But the revelation in the end is all too abrupt and short that one can't help but get out of the theater earning for a better ending. This kinda waters down the overall impact of the movie in the final analysis. Especially bringing in a supposedly menacing character all of a sudden from nowhere and his end brought about by freakish of accidents (kiddish stuff this) are all too imbecile for a movie which was up till then keeping the viewers in leash. 

Performance wise more than the lead pair, it is Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das as Pundit and Idris who steal the show. Spontaneous rendition of such fresh characters with full range of emotions to portray the duo come up trumps. They provide quiet a few laugh-out-loud moments. Emran Hashmi is stoic, having nothing much to express for his character doesn't demand much of emotions to be portrayed. Vidya Balan who's  character was supposedly the main attraction going by the promo and as proclaimed by the makers, ends up disappointing. She looks so conscious about her looks ( or the lack of it), dialogue delivery ( with her annoyingly overdone "OYE") and tries hard to portray herself as crazy and stupid. The spontaneity from her is missing this time.   

Amit Trivedi has given good background score which suits the mood of the movie as does the cinematography of Sethu. Sethu's lighting deserves credit for majority of the story takes place indoors and in the dark. 

Writers Parveez Shaikh and Rajkumar Gupta try their best to keep the mood lighter at the same time not allowing the main plot to get diluted in it's seriousness. But in their quest to have a simple ending, their idea of  a double bluff to fool the audience who by this time must have gone overboard in their guessing game, the climax some how kills the entire mood.  

On the whole, "Ganchakkar" is a definite one time watch just missing the mark to wow the viewers in its quest for over-smartness. 

Bottomline: Less crazy than expected. 

3/5