Ghanchakkar Movie Review

First things first: A heist tale based just on performances and one-liners cannot sustain audience interest for over 150-odd minutes. One blurred smooch scene and no croon worthy numbers do not make an Emraan Hashmi film. Ok. It is a good ploy to have Vidya Balan (in a post Kahaani scenario) alongside Emraan and with the needle of suspicion hovering around her. If anything this is an example of a perfect cast lost in the dreary sands of a loitering script. It spends Biryani time on making two minutes noodles. The storyline is interesting and holds promise. Sanjay Aathre (Emraan) and his wife Neetu (Vidya Balan) live a semi-retired life, breathing on each other: She taking pot shots on his irritating habit of being a couch potato and he unwilling to compliment her on her culinary skill sets. Lurking around is a tempting offer to one final time to keep up the tryst with crime and break open a bank locker (Sanjay's specialty) and make a loot that will keep them rich and happy for a long long time (which includes lifelong subscription for Vogue and Femina). Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) and Idris (Namit Das) walk in with an offer to loot an ATM and the heist leads to the booty being deposited with Sanjay? Why Sanjay? Since he is the only guy who has a home and a wife and would not run away with the booty till the trail is given up. That, however, is where the first twist arrives. Six months down the line and after an accident in the interregnum, when Pandit and Idris come asking for their share, what money says Sanjay. The shocked guys do not know what to do with the guy claiming amnesia. Is he faking it? Is it real? How to get to the booty and where is it? The film is crafted to be a part black comedy but ends up being not very black and the characters lack sufficient flesh or background. It looks like Vidya Balan is straining herself to be seen as an actor who dares to be different. At this rate she will be remembered as one who dared to be different!! Voluptuous as a Punjabi lady may be, she is making good use of her fault as the need of the script. Emraan looks lost and it suits him as the script requires this of him. The film, however, really belongs to the lesser mortals: Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das. Their performances are amazing and not a move of their can be faulted. In the context of our cinema they will not make it to the awards and will not find many columns written about them. Endearing and life filled these two characters without much ado or cinematic clich�s breathe life not just into the two fleshless characters but are the mainstay of the film. Like the many characters who ooze life in 'Laagan', these two in a film revolving around just four characters try very sincerely to overcome every hole in the script with their sense of magical timing. Watch the film for just these two guys and savour their performances. You get a feeling that somewhere down the line Raj Kumar Gupta has lost the plot. It has its ups, to be fair to him. There are some very human moments and also some genuine one-liners and laughable moments. But the black comedy is lost in darkness.