There are a few basic instincts within us that we cannot control - breathing, eating, drinking and carnal desires. But what about the other instincts that we have within us? The wilderness that lies beneath our skins.

How would you feel if you got to know that there exists some sadistic rich men who shoot innocent, helpless, unassuming people just for the curiosity of how it would feel to kill a person? How would you feel when you got to know that the idealistic politician that you would have probably voted for, was once one of those rich horrible men? More so, how would you feel when you get to witness this horribly inhumane act with your own eyes?

So far I have had a list of books that I absolutely loved. After reading "Greed, Lust and Addiction", I now have a list of books that I have absolutely hated, and GLA is going to top the list forever.

The language is like that of a class 10 student writing an essay. It is awfully preachy to say the least. It is preachy to the point that it comes off as prude.The writing is so childish I can almost read it from the comic bubbles above the characters. It is predictable af.
Yeah it does reiterate certain morales which are needed in today's world, but please get a better plot and better writing skills to do that. It was a pain to read the book. Felt like a Value Education project of a school kid. Not because the morals are outdated but because the style of writing is cringeworthy coming from a man in his 40s. His editor should have given him "Word Power made Easy" to improve his vocabulary.

The book just goes oooooon about Yoga! Yeah yoga is good! But using yoga to stay alive after being stabbed 4 times and then bursting through the ground is waaaaay too much. Often it kinda reads like a manual of those 10 rupee yoga books talking about magnetic fields and seven chakras written in the thinnest paper imaginable whose ink turn your fingers black and tears after you read it for the third time. And the manner in which it runs in the book feels like someone googled about yoga and rambled on and on about whatever he could rip off the net.

To mention a few things about the characters in the book :
Righteous journalist elder brother with an ever demanding materialistic wife and family? Who gets killed for his righteousness. Cliched.
Telling the waiter to put a camera below his tray and record the bunch of goons spilling their guts? Author must have seen an Ekta Kapoor serial for sure before he wrote this book. 
Guy moves in to kiss his girlfriend and she retorts with a "What do you think you are doing mister? I want a soul mate not a body mate.We can do all this after marriage but not before marriage." She even put up an analogy of a flower, saying that indulging in "physical activities" before marriage is like plucking a flower which looks nice first but then eventually loses its freshness and wilts. Whereas doing it after marriage is like bring the pot home and caring after it. I am not even going to talk about how weird this logic is. Also, Sooraj Barjatiya, are you watching this from the heavens? Ravi Dabral has found you another ideal 'baahu'.
The journo guy can't even utter the word sex. He calls it "high-quality momentary pleasure". That is as self explanatory as the brushing of flowers against each other in old Bollywood movies.

Turn on the Heat is a very vintage murder mystery book. The moment you start reading it, you get the old world aura and you can just about imagine all the action taking place on cold foggy night, with detectives wearing long coats, hats and smoking pipes and ladies wearing pastel shades and a bouffant, in front of dimly lit Inns and Hotels.

The world of glamour and glitz has always appealing, but The Miss India Murders appears to be especially so as it involves smooth moisturized legs, shimmery shiny hair, bright dazzling smiles and murder.

The expectations I had from this book on reading the blurb and the fact that the author has spent years being a lifestyle journalist, was that this book would be absolutely zazzy! To be an absolute masala of a read! But unfortunately it wasn't so. There should have been more details regarding the murders, the behind tales could have been murkier, given that this is such a massive platform and the world's eyes are glued to the screens when this show airs. Although there were mentions of it of course, but there wasn't much depth or urgency added to it.

Gauri Sinh had ticked all the essential ingredients while picking up plot points but when it came to the broth, the proportion of the ingredients fell far less than required. If it was a recipe I would put it down something like this:

Murder : 800 gm                                                        
Thrill : 75 gm
Suspense: 150 gm
Romance: 0.5 gm
Twist: 250 gm
Mystery: 200 gm
Tension: 100 gm

So the point is, when you got a whole lotta meat (read MURDER) to cook, you gotta season accordingly.

Author : Gauri Sinh

SOC Rating : 3/5

Publisher : Harper Collins

Publishing Year : 2018

#Pages : 248

To begin with let's say that Drishtikon is a thriller with a different approach. It is not the quintessential gruesome murder, with several people behaving suspiciously to let you point fingers at throughout the film, with sporadic shooting of bullets and hour long chases.

Let me tell you at the very beginning that you MUST. ABSOLUTELY. READ. this book. Every page has a new revelation, every page took me by surprise and I had this funny feeling of wanting to finish the book yet not wanting to finish the book.

That the film was made with a lot of brain behind it, is a given. But like people say too much of something is never too good, Meghnad Bodh Rohoshyo is an example to support this testament.

Anik Dutta is a well read and knowledgeable man. He tried to put an intellectual touch to his thriller. It is different from the thrillers we see from the Shobor brand by Arindam Sil, and the Byomkesh and Feluda styles as well. You cannot clearly label this as a thriller of now or a thriller of then, like you can do with the others. It is a mix of both the worlds. There aren't any songs or terrific background music to give that somewhat extra plus to the audience. Songs in a detective film really find no meaning, but they are just there to give the audience something more to nibble on. However some nice spine chilling background music has always been loved. This isn't a fast paced crime film. It is a film which takes its own sweet time, a good 30 minutes more than it should have. It has a slow Miss Marple feel to it all. In fact, slight tones of anglicism are also noticed. Like the play on the name of Asimavo (the protagonist or antagonist? Or both? That's for you to find out) with Isaac Asimov, Asimavo spending a major portion of his life in Oxford and Indrani's daughter having lived mostly abroad.

The character build ups were fine, everyone was at the top of their game, dialogues were well written, but why did Anik Dutta include the paunchy detective and his sidekick for absolutely no reason at all? This entire scenario is like reading the big fat The Book of Rules, trying to absorb it and follow it till you feel you can, and then flinging the book right out of the window because well, fuck this shit. This is what exactly happened in the film. Someone disappeared, so bring the cops in, make them go about asking awkward questions to everyone, show some loopy alibis. Justified. Did the cops really have to be this dumb? You want to show that a detective need not always look sharp and suave. Fine. True that being a sleuth is not based on how you look but how you think. So in that case shouldn't the cops have an ounce of intellect about them? About the way they talk? Ignoring these, if introducing those two cops was a matter of bringing some comic relief into the otherwise serene film, then it is a fail again. Because the only reaction the duo could illicit from the audience was misery. All we could think of when they were on screen is when would they NOT be on screen. Even if the cops were brought in, where did they vanish? In the middle of solving a crime, they were pretty much sent poof into thin air. And surprise surprise or maybe no surprise, who is made to untangle the mess? Abir Chatterjee again. Yes, no doubt he is our favourite sleuth in the state right now, but give him something else to do as well. The detectives were brought in just for the sake of some rationality rules that are demanded for certain arenas, we understand. We also understand that Abir needed to be given a meaty role so this is what the director allocated him. But there should be something to bind the entire plot together, something which links the scenes and the characters. Sadly this wasn't there and it clawed away a MASSIVE portion of the charm this film could have otherwise created.

Moving on from the bits that irked us to the bits that we liked. Sauraseni as a new comer was pretty good. Her acting chops are in place. Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Gargi RoyChowdhury are veterans, so a good performance from them is nothing but expected and that is what they deliver as well. Vikram Chatterjee was good too.

If you would like to know about how the film ends, then being the most optimistic as far as possible, it definitely could have ended better. It almost gives you hopes and then snatches it away from you and leaves you with a slightly unsatisfied filmy soul.

However the way in which the name of the film has been justified is nice. Figuring out who is Meghnad and who is Bibhishon in this tale, on a rainy evening is worth one watch.

For those of you who have missed this movie in the theatres, you can catch it in Netflix here

Absence of Jatayu

One of the major blows of this movie is the absence of Jatayu. Sandip Ray has directed Double Feluda because the two stories based on which the movie is made does not feature the weak and simpering crime novelist we have loved since Sonar Kella. Also there is a strange myth associated with this character. Whoever has played this role has faced an untimely death. Santush Dutta, Anup Kumar, Rabi Ghosh and even Bibhu Bhattacharya, all died in their 60's due to heart attack. Some say the role is cursed, but who knows. Jatayu has always been an integral character, his dialogues will always be remembered but sadly at the present moment there is probably no one fit enough to slip into his shoes.

Benuda is our favourite Feluda

He may be ageing whereas the Feluda in the books is still young, but imagine if Satyajit Ray was gracing us with his presence now, Feluda would have aged and Ray would have approved to take Benuda on board. Sabyasachi Chakraborty with his baritone voice does full justice to the character. His pragmatic persona is definitely on point.

Brimming House of Talent

Is Gaurav Chakraborty. Watch out for him. He is an actor to reckon with.

Lack lustre

The film was like bland food. Easily digestible and smooth, no spice to keep up the suspense. A detective movie demands to be edgy and Double Feluda failed to do so. It is just that the ensemble cast did their bit. The rest fell flat.


It is an average watch. A movie dedicated to 50 years of Feluda deserved to be better. Way better. You will forget what you saw once the lights are on.

                                   

A catchy name + A fetchy plot = Eagoler Chokh.

The L.H.S of this equation is director and co-producer Arindam Sil’s success formula.

However,

A catchy name + A fetchy plot – The excess intimate scenes = A Possibly better Egoler Chokh.

In many stories sex and intimacy are of immense importance. Here, in Eagoler Chokh physical relationships play a vital role, but to retain its essence it could be a little restrained in terms of its number. The beauty and authenticity of romance or raw sensuality is kind of lost in the repeated love making scenes. Nonetheless there were some shots where the craze for human touch was well portrayed, like in the hospital where Bishan kisses his wife, the moments steeped in lust expressed with just a look or a loving caress and when the 15 year old Bishal was getting to know the skin of a woman for the first time.  But some of the other intimate scenes came out forced and at times seemed unnecessary.

To say it directly Eagoler Chokh is a very bold movie. No subtlety involved at all. 

Coming to our straight-to-the-point sleuth, ACP Shobor Dasgupta, Saswata Chatterjee couldn’t be better. The letter S stands for quite a few things – Smart, Sharp, Sincere, Sarcastic, Scintillating, Shrewd and many more and all of these are there in S for Shobor. His serious attitude peppered with a little snappy humour makes him even more fun to watch. Even though he is shown to be a being devoid of tender feelings, the glimmering drop of tear at the corner of his eye when he talks to Shivangi for the last time shows that he does have a heart.  

Anirban Bhattacharya as the rich and deeply flawed entrepreneur Bishan Ray delivers an appreciable performance. His profound drawl definitely added more drama to his character. 

Rita Fernandez, Nandini, Jahnabi, Shivangi Roy and her sister Shyamangi, the women involved with Bishan, have him entwined around their little finger. His life is toyed around by these women who themselves are tortured with their obsession regarding him. 

Arunima Ghosh didn’t have a considerable screen time, but she made her presence felt whenever she was on there. Didn’t let the character of the protagonist overpower her. 

Joya Ahsan as Shivani Ray seemed genuine, especially when she stared blankly and stuttered her first words after waking up from coma. 

Nandini played the scheming seductress pretty well. Payel Sarkar is turning out to be an ace in these roles. 

Ushoshi Sengupta debuts with this film and puts in a good effort. Her character is a surprise. 

Gaurav Chakroborty has honesty written all over his face, precisely the reason why he made such a suitable choice for playing the role of a gentle and austere police officer. We have usually seen him in emotional roles, causing a bit of a surprise when he was seen walking in the whites.

To end it all, the music accompanying the thrilling chases was very composed and talking about the chases, it was an immense delight in seeing crisp chasing scenes which are not elongated just for the sake of extending the movie.   

This second feather in the Shobor hat is worth a watch.  The end will leave you stunned.

For those who have missed it in the theatres, watch it in Prime Video now!

A lot of cuss words, a lot of sleeping with this person, that person, with him, with her, murder, murder and four more murders.

Its as if scotch, money and lust is what all life has to offer. While some may agree that these are ALL the best things in life, there may be some people who believe that these are nothing but some of the best things life gives us. I, happen to support the second group. Too much of blood, sex and alcohol make this movie very, very stifling. It overpowers the flimsy plot of the movie. The obvious saga which will come to the minds of many supporters of the former, is Game of Thrones. I would gladly like to point out that despite the gore and skin show Game of Thrones has an amazing plot as a breather, something which this movie grossly lacked. All Shororipu did was drown our sensible side in alcohol and stab our intellect over and over again.

The twist at the end comes as a total surprise. The surprise is so terrifically dumb that no one could have seen it coming. This script was surely the aftermath of a night soaked in scotch.

Even though Shororipu is regarding the seven sins which involves love, lust blah blah, it could have been portrayed with a sensible story line and not by something just strung along. After every passing minute, I thought OK, there will be something worth watching in the next scene maybe. I was disappointed, to say the least.

Dhee Majumdar and Rudraneel Ghosh came as respite. If you sit on your seats, you will sit for them. As the young Shekhar, Dhee Majumdar has a small role but he does justice to it. Effortless acting on his part, accurate expressions and perfect usage of his baritone voice. Rudraneel Ghosh is a wonder. The timid manager, to calm blackmailer, to a pretty good singer (the male voice in that pointless but peppy item number is his), Rudraneel Ghosh as Shubhankar Nandi was lovely to watch. Chiranjeet Chatterjee as the sleuth Chandrakanta brought a certain sharpness to his character which is commendable. Koneenika Banerjee, as the simpering and nagging assistant was watchable. Sudipta Chakraborty however seemed too loud and definitely overacted her part. Indraneel Sengupta didn't make a mark, but at least he didn't make us cringe so it was alright. Rajatava Dutta is a veteran actor so a brilliant performance from him is nothing but expected, nonetheless the kind of character he tried to portray probably calls for a different cast. That smile of his with his wide open eyes may send chills down your spine though. Sohona Saba, well, she can do better than this, hopefully.

The only scene which will bring a hint of smile to your face is when Chandrakanta says 'Kani ebar ektu popcorn niye esho toh.' and the lights are switched on for the interval.

An average film with a very clumsy end is what all I can say about Shororipu. 

Based on the story Banhi Patanga by Saradindu Bandopadhay this winter Arindam Sil gives us a racy pacy Byomkesh film for our regular dose of much needed thrill.

The movie rolls and enters Byomkesh Bakshi with his wife Satyabati and his author brother Ajit Bandopadhay who are greeted by Inspector Purandhar Pandey in the holy city of Benaras.

Abir in his dhuti panjabi attire and with his smartness and sharp intellect remind us of our olden golden rich bangaliana. His clear cut words and no nonsense attitude reiterates the fact that he is the perfect choice for portraying a sleuth.
Sohini Sarkar gives us a cheerful Satyabati who is demure, intelligent and adds a  certain cuteness to her personality.
Ritwick Chakraborty, the sidekick of our detective as Ajit Bandopadhay has the edginess of a creative mind and also provides some comic relief at times in such a sombre background.
Harsh Chhaya draws an endearing picture of Inspector Purandhar Pandey who plays an ideal host to our family from bengal.

Now comes Inspector Rathikanth Chowdhury marching into Purandhar Panday's residence to invite him to Deepnarayan Singh's palace for a gala night. Having guests over, Purandhar Pandey politely declines the invitation, but Deepnarayan Singh's generous hospitality is extended which is why our trio too are invited.

Deepnarayan Singh happens to be a rich, powerful zamindar of Benaras around whom mysterious tales are woven especially about his second wife Shakuntala Singh, played by Nusrat Jahan. Rumours say that he has married Shakuntala, a woman half his age, by his own will and against hers.
Whatever the rumours maybe Adil Hussain as Deepnarayan Singh will leave a mark on you even with his short screen time. That voice. That smooth talk. Those titbits of bangla. Many bong women can be heard sighing whenever his face is on screen. Though Nusrat Jahan needs to hone her acting skills, she cut a very beautiful picture throughout the movie.

Night falls, guests come pouring in and a beautiful mujra is presented by Koneenika. Meanwhile Inspector Rathikanth comes in with the news of a robbery in Dr. Pannalal Palit's, the doctor who gave Deepnarayan Singh a new life,modest dispensary.
And that is when the mystery knocks at our detective's door.

Appreciable performances rule all over but we miss the way in which Byomkesh Bakshi slowly unwinds the facts before his audience. Here the revelation is narrated a bit too fast by Abir which bereaves us of enjoying the moment where we are left aghast.

Cinematographer Soumik Halder has beautifully captured the wondrous Benaras in his lens.

Bikram Ghosh deserves special mention for his music direction. Well placed catchy songs are always welcome in a good film.

Over all Har Har Byomkesh makes for a satisfying watch.

PS: Spoiler alert !!! A painting plays a pivotal role here and at the end you will find a scene which is a total rip off of Jai Baba Felunath. Director Arindam Sil says that it is a tribute although. And for the ones drooling over Abir Chatterjee, you will find him romancing his lady love here.

Watch it here in Amazon Prime, if you have missed it in the theatres!

Mon Chora, seems like a low budget attempt in romance by Sandip Ray. Nonetheless barring some errors, it is quite watchable.

Abir Chatterjee and Saswata Chatterjee save the movie from turning into a snooze fest. Saswata once again shows his brilliance by being the meek Monu, who can even kill for his lady love Miss Lily. Abir is slowly turning out to be the ultimate detective and romantic hero. He has a certain sharpness in his mannerisms which is very refreshing.
Raima Sen shimmers through the movie as Nanda and tries to follow the foot steps of her grandmother Suchitra Sen in the way she flutteres her lashes and in her dialogue delivery, but she kinda falls flat on that. We have seen superior performances from her and expect much more. We needed more life from her and less of the plastic stuff. She could have positively been better if she gave more of herself and tried to imitate her granny less. Though it wasn't a terrible attempt on her part, we would prefer seeing a Raima than another Suchitra.
June Malia shines as Miss Lily and she did what she does best, drinking and seducing men. That's all that she has been doing lately, on screen that is.
Paran Bandopadhay too was in his usual comic self.

Sandip Ray may have inherited his father's foodie genes, which is oh-so-evident when we have Paran Bandopadhay relishing his dinner with his doting granddaughter Nanda (Raima) watching him lovingly and saying 'Pudding er jonno jayega rekho kintu' in the opening scene, but he has his father's large shoes to fill in the suspense sector.
We have seen him primarily direct Feluda movies and whatever non-Feluda movies he has made all have a thriller element in them. Mon Chora too has a whiff of suspense, which is one of the highlights of the movie. But the thrill present in the original story of Saradindu Bandopadhay could have been delineated better. The major draw here lays in the charm of innocent love and that is depicted modestly by Abir and Raima. And there is a surprise at the end which you cannot possibly guess and will be thinking of throughout the movie.

The movie has a very 80's feel to it with the exception of a single iPhone only. If winter spells romance for you and reminds you of long lost days then you can positively drop in a nearby theatre and give Mon Chora a watch. Despite its flaws it will leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling with your partner by your side.