Kiriti Roy Bengali Movie
Bengali film Industry, all of a sudden, is full of thrillers, vampire stories and sleuth sagas all over!! Sleuths never bore us, heroes do.
Almost every other director has till date experimented with Bengali detectives. One brownie point behind this endeavour is: the Directors do not have to put much effort as these stories are based on cult literature; thereby there is not much risk involved. The newest in the brigade is Aniket Chattopadyay's "Kiriti Roy".
Chiranjeet Chakraborty plays the famous private investigator in the film which is based on Dr. Niharanjan Roy's story "Setarer Sur" (symphony of Sitar). The story is multilayered and full of twists. Five friends, Sunil, Ranjan, Brajesh, Subrata and Suhash in late 50's, all prosperous young lads, who often go to clubs and almost all of them are besotted by the beautiful Basabi (Sayani Ghosh). Basabi lives with her uncle Biraj who has a mysterious past in Rangoon. He is handicapped but snooty and has an estranged wife named Jennifer (Swastika Mukherjee).
The captivating part is the film has also tried to explore the period where the crime was happening. Though being a regional cinema, it does not have the budget to recreate near perfect set design of Dibakar Banerjee's Hindi take on Byomkesh, yet the recurring theme of Bengali cinema as a backdrop creates magic!! Basabi, the queen of hearts die young, she was murdered as Kiriti Roy appears in the scene. How he solves the two consecutive murders and unearth everybody's grey past and hidden present forms the crux of the film.
Most of the cast members acted considerably well. Especially Swastika Mukherjee is excelling in film after film. Ankita Chakraborty has a tremendous screen presence which is still to e used properly. Inspector Rathin played by another Director Kaushik Ganguly is hilarious. Kishnendu Dewanji as Suhash draws attention. With his strong theatre background, he did justice to his character. Sayani is ok. Nothing extraordinary.
Who stands apart is Chiranjeet Chakraborty as Kiriti Roy. With his demeanour, he steals the show. Neel Mukhopadyay as his compatriot Subrata played low as required from him. Locket Chatterjee adds nothing.
Camera followed the characters well. Set design added to the theme. Background score by Joy Sarkar heightens the spirit of the film. Especially the background score, particularly the instrumental ones. Editing could have been sharper.
In one word, the film is watchable, rather compared to other films happening in recent times in the Bengali Film Industry, this film seems to attract the ordinary people to bid farewell the year well.
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