Byomkesh Bakshi Review

Yesterday, I went to see the much hyped, the much awaited and eagerly anticipated movie, 'Byomkesh Bakshi' (based on the novel 'Aadim Ripu') by Anjan Dutta. I am always an ardent fan of this bengali 'satyanweshi' or sleuth right from my childhood. He differentiated himself in all his cases from other popular characters like feluda. For a detective, he fell in love with a girl (Satyaboti) during the investigation of a case and later married her and is the proud father of a little boy. In his life, he has never used firearms and uses his 'little grey cells' (As Agatha Christie might had put :) ) to solve all his cases.

The movie has successfully captured the true essence of Byomkesh and what I best liked about it that the sidekick Ajit (played by Saswata Chatyopadhyay) also had a role and was not just dragged around Byomkesh. The movie is presented through the eyes of Ajit and anecdoted by his occasional monologues (which I think could have been avoided). Abir Chatyopadhyay as Byomkesh was brilliant. He played the role with conviction and ease. Rudranil Ghosh also played his part well as the meek Prabhat Halder who is always shy and cannot speak up for himself. Others have also chipped in quite well and delivered good performances. Apart from acting, the cinematography is great and so is the background score. The song lipped by Swastika (as Shiuli) is a real nice one and well portrayed as well. The film remains faithful to the story and has avoided all possible remakes including action adventures and chase sequences and has also maintained a decent pace.

But on the con side I have a few complaints. It was a good movie but an average kind of a detective movie. I mean all the facts were not crisply presented to the audience so I don't think that the audience was also trying to deduce and investigate. It did not follow the golden rule of Satyajit Ray. He had argued that to catch the repeat audience, you have to tell him explicitly that who had committed the crime and then make the chase after the criminal interesting and entertaining to capture audience attention. Till now, I have no idea what the first scene of stabbing wanted to convey.

But, all in all, if you enjoy a good film and/or love Byomkesh, you'll definitely enjoy this one.