Blackmail Review

Abhinay Deo is back to the genre that brought him fame. Delhi Belly was the first popular dark comedy for Bollywood, and his latest script lies in the same zone. Delhi Belly has pronounced display of ‘tatti’, and Blackmail has masturbation scene in equal intervals. Similarly, there is crime and confusion in this too. Well, was it as fruitful? Kind of yes.

Blackmail is primarily story of Dev (Irrfan Khan), who is an average Indian whose life is stagnant with a 9-5 job and a bunch of financial commitments. His wife played by Kriti Kulhari is found sleeping with another man, Ranjit (Arunoday Singh) on one fine night. Dev is shocked but being a “seedha-saadha” guy decides to blackmail, instead of getting violent. He blackmails Ranjit. Ranjit is also a married man and the wife is played by Divya Dutta. Dev’s blackmail leads to a chain of blackmails, and what concludes the fate of everyone involved in this mess is the rest of the film.

Blackmail relies entirely on the black comedy and its gray characters. Everyone in the film tries to make hay while the sun shines and that leads to many unexpected twists which work in the favor of the film. The film spends too much time though in establishing the characters and the build-up. There’s hardly any movement in the first hour. Only in the second half that the film takes a leap and starts becoming racy. The frequent act of masturbation gets annoying after a point. In the film, Irrfan jerks off on the pictures of his women colleaguesin the office.

Irrfan of course is the show stealer of the film. No one could play the mango man like him. The frustration coupled with powerlessness is enacted greatly by him. He always gives a new meaning to subtlety. Another who stood neck-to-neck is Divya Dutta playing the drunk dominating wife. She was terrific too.Arunoday and Kriti Kulhari play their roles with panache too. Supporting characters like Omi Vaidya (3 Idiots fame), went overboard sometimes. Some dialogues were intended to be funny but do not tickle the funny bone.

The movie’s production values are a bit off. The movie needed a better cinematography. Amit Trivedi’s music score helps the film.

There are some moments which a common-salaried-man would relate to in the film. There’s a scene where Irrfan doesn’t ask a ransom. but just enough to clear off his debts and loans and just clear his financial commitments.

The movie, however might cater to only those who have a thing for dark comedies. Some moments are very raw and some disgraceful scenes are projected as casual.

All in all, a watchable dark comedy.