Ittefaq Hindi film review - Lacks tension, could have been sharper...

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Movie poster image source & credit: imdb.com
Director Abhay Chopra, son of Late Ravi Chopra and the grandson of the great Late B R Chopra (makers of the renowned TV series Mahabharata (1988)), makes an okay directorial debut. He dabbles with one too many a going-back-and-fro to handle in this murder mystery, and should not have based it off of the classic namesake from '69 (instead charting his own, which he had done anyway).

 The plot:

A double murder case - a writer's wife gets killed, and on the same night, a husband gets murdered. Two suspects to begin with. One police officer, who has three days to solve the whodunit. The two suspects have their own versions of the night.

The pros:
  • Akshaye Khanna's performance as the police officer. Glad he has so much screen-presence, in this one, and he proves yet again why he is easily one of the finest actors of our generation. Wish we could see him more often on the big-screen.
  • Siddharth Malhotra proves once more that he is not just a poster-boy, and emotes convincingly.
  • The length of the film; it's just 107 minutes.
  • It's nicely filmed, for the most part, and the Mumbai's rains add a nice chai touch.
The cons:
  • The climax was flimsy and silly. I mean, can't the Mumbai Police stop a plane? Facepalm!
  • This one lacks the edge-of-the-seat magic, and the 'missing the suspense' feeling stares at you in the face.
  • This is the first film of Sonakshi Sinha where I felt she doesn't perform well. (Not that I have seen all her films, but she is usually very good and convincing.)
My verdict: 2.5 out of 5. Wants me to go watch the 1969 original this one is inspired from, again, for sure.

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