A knobby-kneed desi homage to Sherlock Holmes
Director: Kaushik Ghatak
Cast: Rajiv Khandelwal, Madalasa Sharma, Gopal Dutt, Girish Karnad, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rajneesh Duggal
Arthur Conan Doyle would have no idea that the fictional detective he created would be providing cannon fodder for the entertainment industry for eons to come. Kaushik Ghatak seems inspired both by two brilliant modern interpretations of the fictional detective — one starring Robert Downey Jr and the other Benedict Cumberbatch. The plot involves a closed door murder of a rich patriarch with a dubious past. Thankfully, the butler didn’t do it.
The film is shot amidst the hilly environs of Simla. The outdoors aren’t used to greater effect as most of the film is shot in Chroma. The old school family mansion that we saw in the ‘60s is revisited here. Because of Chroma, its dimensions take on absurd proportions. In some long shots, you feel as if you are watching some castle from Lord Of The Rings and not a family home.
One highlight of the book and the recent interpretations as well is the verbal sparring between Holmes and Watson. Well, the Watson played by Gopal Dutt to Khandelwal’s Holmes is over the top and a bit of a buffoon. The air of easy camaraderie shared by the detective and his sidekick, so essential to the success of a Holmes flick is lacking here. Another big blooper is giving Khandelwal the unfortunate acronym STD — short for Samrat Tilakdhari. So the greatest sleuth in fiction is reduced to a juvenile joke. Swell!
To his credit, Khandelwal tries to do full justice to his character but he is hampered by a shoddy screenplay. A whodunit should keep us hooked to our seats and should keep us guessing. Here, the proceedings get tedious and after a while you stop caring for victims. You want it all to end quickly, so as to rush home and read The Hound Of The Baskervilles all over again. The ending leaves scope for a sequel and for Holmes’s sake the filmmakers shouldn’t botch it up the next time.