Directed by Anu Menon, Neeyat is a mystery-thriller headlined by the brilliant Vidya Balan which releases today in a theatre near you. Read the full review here.
Cast : Vidya Balan, Ram Kapoor, Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami, Rahul Bose, Shashank Arora, Niki Walia, Dipannita Sharma, Danesh Razvi, Prajakta Kohli, Amrita Puri
Director : Anu Menon
When a film which boasts of such a splendid cast, it is natural that the film would be anticipated by the cinema lovers with a lot of interest. Neeyat, also, being a crime-thriller adds to the whole packaging of the movie but sadly, nothing reflects on the big screen except mediocrity and a lot of noise but no chatter.
Plot : If you have read a lot of Agatha Christie novels back in the days, you would eventually believe that while writing Neeyat, the writers were reading the same novels. The mystery-thriller which revolves around a fugitive Indian businessman Ashish Kapoor also fondly called AK played by Ram Kapoor and his lavish birthday getaway planned on an island in a dreamy castle where he is joined by his closest family members and friends with a surprise guest, ie, Indian CBI officer, Mira Rao (Vidya Balan) makes a super intriguing plot. A castle away from civilization, a lavish party with the most flamboyant guests and a CBI officer joining them all the way from India to bring AK back to India to present him to the courts is just the setting which a mystery-crime-thriller needs but nothing works for the film collectively.
Every character has a unique relationship to Ashish Kapoor but he terms all of them as ‘leeches’ who are dependent upon him for their survival and needs. The way he humiliated them after inviting all of them to a castle on an island is simply cringe. Every character has a motive, every character is perplexed and to add to that, every character is go gullible that she/he owns the motive as soon as Mira points it out. You must be wondering about which motive is being talked about here. Well, for that you have to see the film.
After a whole lot of wicked narration which sets in the characters in the story of the movie done brilliantly by the castle’s staff’s manager Tanveer (Danesh Razvi), the film reaches midway and we still are looking for twists which actually would twist the minds of the audience. The film reaches its second half and a bland turn in the film moves the story forward when there are eyes on everyone as the who dunnit question arises. Mira, who is always dizzying away and trembling while having anxiety issues, suddenly becomes a center of a circle where she accuses everyone for their motives and every character explains as well why they did what she said and I still have questions about why are they all so gullible and/or dramatic?!
What follows next is a confusing set of characters confusing the viewers even more with their never-ending sub-plots which eventually act as the buzzkill for the primary plot. Every character has a lot to heart out their emotions and has a lot to say with only cringe drama and sudden tears. The film ends with a final twist which works primarily because it comes out of nowhere but we wish this concluding twist was co-supported well by the whole movies setting and story-telling.
The only silver-lining in the film is its climax and interesting performances by Rahul Bose, Shashank Arora, Danesh Razvi who seem to be the only actors who got their character-arcs well. Needless to say, Vidya Balan is as always, consistent as an actor. The only difference here is she is constantly falling on the floor or attacked or fainting.
Our Rating : 2 out of 5.
