Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Movie Review: Kahaani

Scene one. A test lab and a killer gas. Scene two. The Kolkata metro. A man desperately searching for a knapsack. Too late to stop an attack that kills dozens on the train.

Two years later, a visibly pregnant woman Vidya (Vidya Balan) lands in Kolkata from London, and directly takes a cab to the police station, to file a missing person's report. Her husband, Arnab Basu, is missing, failing to call her or connect with her after spending two weeks at the National Data Center as a software engineer, on assignment from London. As the station's helpful cop Rana digs deeper with Vidya into Arnab's disappearance, things get really murky... the hotel, the NDC, the school he studied in, they all refuse having any knowledge of Arnab. He has simply disappeared. What is also interesting is that he resembles a man wanted by the IB for the metro attack.

Where is Arnab? What is his connection to the metro attack? The story builds up beautifully, adding twists and turns at a rapid pace until it slows down and starts to disappoint in the second half... until suddenly, in a flash, the brilliance of the plot hits you.

Vidya is brilliant, Rana is faithful, and the rest of the cast also do a great job. Kolkata is repeatedly featured as in a documentary, giving a glimpse into the culture and lifestyle of this great city. The slight overdose of Kali ma can get to you, as will Vidya's "for the award" performance, but overall, Kahaani grips you and enthralls you.

A good thriller!

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