Tag Archives: Sneha Khanwalkar

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015)

My Ratings: 3.9/5.

Sometimes in the anticipation of fulfilling our expectations we seem to surrender ourselves to a particular art form even before we have truly experienced it.

For me in this case, being a huge fan of both Byomkesh Bakshy (detective) and Dibakar Banerjee (director), i realized that even before watching the film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! i somehow knew that this would be a cinema of superlative excellence.

But then again such emotional pre-asumptions could be dangerous.

detective-byomkesh-bakshy-poster1Well, i surely won’t go that far by saying that Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! failed to live up to my expectations but i have to admit that the climax and specially the post-climax melodrama could have been handled better.

But first things first, this is THE best, most-detailed and flawless period film i have ever seen!

Thanks to awesome production designing by Vandana Kataria and superb Vfx by Prana Studios.

From the unique Kolkata trams to the Life magazine displayed in a bookshop, from the logo in tea cup to the hoardings and advertisements in the streets, the color/texture of the buildings, the typical style of wearing dhotis and sarees, the cars and their number plates, even the make of a revolver – all takes you back to an era that we have only read but never seen before.

Nostalgic Kolkata in the early 40s – a city traumatized by the World-War II, ripped and torn apart by the internal power struggle for freedom from the British Raj.

And in such turbulent times, in the midst of outraged freedom fighters and violent Japanese opium smugglers, a young man seems to be investigating a peculiar case of a chemist’s disappearance.

Detective_Byomkesh_Bakshi_poster4Dibakar Banerjee chooses to portray Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay‘s famous fictional sleuth as an inexperienced, just-out-of-college, curious, restless, impulsive youth – Byomkesh Bakshy, the legendary detective in the making. 

And Sushant Singh Rajput does a great job, he is absolutely sure of what is wanted from him and delivers spot on. Even the other actors Anand Tiwari (as Watson), and then Neeraj KabiSwastika MukherjeeDivya Menon all have given their best.

Cool background score by Sneha Khanwalkar and great frames captured by Dibakar’s favorite cinematographer Nikos Andritsakis.  

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is no doubt a decent thriller, technically flawless but the overall plot and editing could have been sharper.

A good film that easily had the potential to be a great one.

  • Share on Tumblr