A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A Masterpiece!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is one of the best movies of 2014. The last half an hour was a little disappointing. Otherwise it would have been THE best movie of 2014. The story and the plot is very very gripping. Once you start this movie, you can't just leave your seat. I see a little style of Arthur Conan Doyle in this movie. Except for Rajiv Khandewal and Girish Karnad, acting is not that great. But the plot and the story compensates for it. For me the most disappointing part was the last half an hour where the story loosens the grip by showing the hero saving the heroine who was driving a car with a speed bomb planted in it. This is repeated in 100s of Hindi movies since 1970. If you can digest this scene, the rest of the movie is wonderful.

This is one of the best Indian films i have seen, Bollywood is not known for producing detective stories but they managed such an interesting movie. It was brilliantly detected, decent background music, suspense till the end, nice script, good plot. In a detective story one has to develop every single character from a driver or a neighbor to the detective itself, and the director and writer managed to do so in this. The dialogs are brilliant and can be used in everyday lives. BUT, there is one thing, after the film ends, the director, writer, actors and every body tells us about the making of the film and all. They tell us that it took them a lot of days to build up Samrat's character in the film, they considered a lot of things and thought a lot before giving a summer of the character to Rajeev khandelwal. While the truth is, all they did was ask Rajeev to closely observe Benedict Cumberbatch's character and copy it, which he did. Same attitude, same lifestyle, same coat, same way of setting the collar of the coat. They should have at least told us that they were inspired by the brilliance of Benedict Cumberbatch. Otherwise, as a whole, the film is awesome, suspense till the very end. The actors did great job.

Hindi Cinema has given us very few brilliant investigative crime dramas and when it comes to films based on any particular detective figure only, then we have rarely gone into that specific genre with a serious vision. Interestingly Bengali Cinema has many movies made on their cult detective icons such as Byomkesh Bakshi, Feluda and more. But Hindi Cinema has recently realized this void and now coming up with a series of detective movies in the coming months beginning with SAMRAT & CO. made under the reputed banner of Rajshri Productions venturing into this rare genre of crime movies for the very first time.However, the sad news is that a clean attempt made into this less explored genre remains the only merit of this amateurish detective film and it has been surprisingly directed quite casually without taking care of all the 'must have' ingredients required for such investigative thrillers. On a lighter note, probably having only a Sherlock Holmes kind of character along with a funny Watson looking into an interesting case brought in by a charming girl is only what a detective film is all about as per the writer and the director, as I personally felt while watching it.Elaborating on the same, a detective movie made on a particular case first of all has to move out of the TV serial mode essentially to make it big enough to be presented as a complete theater experience. In fact that is the very reason why many films are not made in this risky genre, since they don't offer any repeat value, once the secret is out revealing the real killer. Therefore you often get to see enjoyable Detective Serials being made with several episodes for the channels, but rarely a major film made on a single case.Secondly, the case adapted for the film should be so engrossing in its own that it can keep the viewer focused and glued to the proceedings for at least two hours with new clues and development thrown in every 10 minutes.Thirdly and most importantly the culmination of such films should be shocking as well as entertaining enough that the viewer feels annoyed (on his own misjudgment) yet immensely satisfied with the disclosure made by the detective describing the complete process of his investigations in the last reel.But surprisingly, none of the above is there in SAMRAT & CO. and the film still follows the same old overused pattern of 'every suspect, dying one by one' as its uninteresting story progression incorporating many other added subplots without any clear vision. Moreover the pattern of direction makes you wonder about the kind of team behind the product, who probably have never read Indian detective novels of writers such as Ibn-e-Safi, Ved Prakash Sharma, Colonel Ranjit and the pioneer Surendra Mohan Pathak with his famous characters of Sunil, Sudhir, Vimal and more. Plus it seems they even missed out enjoying the interesting detective heroes of the Comic world too wherein we had Rajan-Iqbal, Mama Bhanja, Babloo, Inspector Manoj, Amar-Akbar, Colonel Karan and many more, much famous among the kids and also in the grown-up comic lovers, continuing with their childhood passion lovingly.Anyway moving ahead, even if you ignore the weird hair-style and 'speaking to self in a fast mode' tactics of detective Samrat, still there are many more sequences in the film which force you to call it a childish attempt in a serious genre, made by an over enthusiastic team. For instance, the narration leaves several questions answered in the end which is a clear indication of an unprepared script with lots of visible loopholes. Too many characters are stuffed into the proceedings in order to make it thrilling enough forcibly. Characters are singing songs in the middle of an ongoing investigation, just to fill in the commercial needs. In the same mansion at a hill station, one character comes out of the washroom saying its too cold in here and the other is wearing short skirts as if its summer time. Strangely so many digitalized, backdrops have been used unnecessarily to give it a different feel. The detective starts fighting with the killer in the end on a dangerous hill top, perhaps to fill in the action requirement of the distributor as it seems. And lastly just like a typical Hindi film hero, the intelligent detective also finds his true love in the young daughter of the dead as if she was just waiting for a crime investigator only all her life till now.To say the truth, this certainly isn't the film matching up to the Rajshri standards from any angle featuring such over the top and irritating performances by the lead characters including Rajeev Khandelwal (didn't he read the script before signing it?). Also I found accomplished performers such as Priyanshu Chatterjee feeling quite uncomfortable acting in such mediocre movie made in the name of 'Dilchasp Rahasya Ride', which neither has anything 'Dilchasp' nor 'Rahasyamayi' in its 2+ hours of duration, taking the viewer on to a funny ride.Summing up, the background score is the only decent feature of this poor film but since one cannot spend both his time and money for this one factor alone. So simply skip it and watch the American TV Series "True Detective" instead, if you really wish to see something spectacular about detectives.

Samrat Tilakdhari aka STD(Rajeev Khandelwal) is our Desi Sherlock Holmes who likes to try his hands upon challenging cases only in the company of his Desi Dr. Watson - Chakradhar aka CD(Gopal Dutt). He gets a challenging assignment through Shimla based Dimpy(Madalsa Sharma) who informs him that the garden of her family house has dried up without an apparent reason and her father(Girish Karnad) is quite depressed and frightened after the death of their gardener who had rendered a commination to the garden when expelled from service by her father. However the real challenge appears in this assignment only upon our hero's arrival at the venue in Shimla which is a palatial house made in the style of the British times when killings start in the extended family residing there. As expected, our hero finally solves this whodunit.The prestigious Rajshri banner of the Barjatya family has made this movie, taking a diversion from the family dramas they are famous for. However this whodunit also contains a family drama which is behind the mysterious happenings and killings. Director Kaushik Ghatak had earlier directed Ek Vivah Aisa Bhi(2008) for the Barjatyas which was nothing but another version of Rajshri's old hit Tapasya(1976). This time, he seems to have read many Sherlock Holmes stories penned by Arthur Conan Doyle and also some Agatha Christie novels before writing the script of this movie which is a mix-masala of a Sherlock Holmes venture and a Hercule Poirot venture with some James Bondish stunts appearing at places. It does not bore but a writer-director skilled in making such movies would have presented a much better movie on this story.The traditional murder mystery has been spread pretty well on the screen with ample attention to the fine details of the characters, their relationships and their activities. However in his bid to present his detective hero as the legendary Sherlock Holmes, too much detailing has been poured into his dialogs which becomes irksome after a point. But the director was not satisfied with the Sherlock Holmes persona of his hero, so he has committed the blunder of rendering a touch of James Bond also by showing him doing stunts which is superfluous.The narrative would have been taut and free-flowing without the two songs unnecessarily inserted into the movie. Though I liked the second(romantic) song, it didn't stay with me after the movie was over. And the first song which is a party song is highly irritating because of the disgusting appearance of'elephantine' Ganesh Acharya dancing with a young girl.Kaushik Ghatak as a script-writer has done well by linking everything to everything else without leaving any loose ends wanting to be tied up when the story ends but he has introduced unnecessary characters also. The character of Shanti(Pooja Gupta) who presents a parody of Basanti of Sholay is one such character only. Though I laughed at a few places but it was because of the hero and not the humorous characters and situations those the director has tried to force into the narrative.Unlike many recent Bollywood movies, one half of the movie is not superior or inferior to the other one. The suspense-filled story flows equally well in both the halves and the intermission has been brought at the correct spot.Dialog-writer could not write quality one-liners for the hero. The one-liners are aplenty for him in the script but they fail to rise above the ordinary. He terms the heroine(Madalsa Sharma) at a place -'Mistress in Distress'. God only knows what it means because I have heard and read about'Damsel in Distress' only.Rajshri banner has switched to lavishness from simplicity under the reign of Sooraj Barjatya. However I am highly surprised to see that the shooting has not been done in the real locations of Shimla(or at least some other hill station). The animation and artificiality is so vivid that it appears to be a stain in the name of the great Rajshri banner.There are two USPs of this movie. The first one is - it's a neat and clean movie. Nowadays it has become a rarity to come across neat and clean entertainers from Bollywood. Rajshri banner had earned a repute of presenting simple but very sweet movies sans any vulgarity during the sixties, the seventies and the early eighties. This movie is devoid of any vulgarity and definitely a movie which can be watched with one's family.The second one is Rajeev Khandelwal, the hero of this movie wearing a persona of Sherlock Holmes but acting at places in Hercule Poirot style also. Rajeev is a talented actor and a perfect hero material for Bollywood movies. In this movie, he has got very limited range of expressions because of the role being that of a detective, still he impresses. Given a right break, he can emerges as the latest heartthrob of young Indian females. He is one reason, you keep on watching this movie despite its apparent flaws.Other than Rajeev, Gopal Dutt as his sidekick has also done a good job. All others including the heroine - Madalsa Sharma, are strictly okay. However it's a great pleasure to see highly talented and charming actor Priyanshu Chatterjee in a movie after a long hiatus.All in all, the trouble with this old-fashioned whodunit is its mediocrity. It could have been a much superior mystery movie in the hands of an able director. All the same, it's not a bad movie. It's a decent one time watch but strictly for the mystery fans.My rating for the movie - 2.5 stars