Movie review- KAHAANI

Disclaimer: Though Kahaani is a suspense-thriller, this review does not give away anything by the way of clincher/suspense/mystery…so go ahead and read this review without the fear of losing out on the pleasure of watching it first-hand, and also to know why you should not miss this one for anything.

After a long, long time Bollywood has succeeded in giving us a true thriller. A spell-binding, don’t-dare-to-take-a-loo-break kind of story that makes you sit on the edge of your seat through its two odd hours of screening time.

Vidya Balan, playing her namesake Vidya Bagchi, and getting constantly irritated by people pronouncing her name as ‘Bidya’ in Kolkota, where she lands from London for the first time in her life trying to search for her missing husband Arnab Bagchi, who had supposedly left London about a month ago on a company assignment, but suddenly disappears fifteen days ago (Vidya suddenly stops receiving his calls/mails/texts). Vidya is six months pregnant (But looks 12 months pregnant with an oversized belly- unless she is harboring quintuplets in her womb!). What baffles her, along with the police, who are genuinely trying to help her in locating her husband, is the fact that no one has apparently ever heard of, or seen an Arnab Bagchi! She locates the cheap guest house where her husband has alleged to have stayed, but the staff there doesn’t recall anyone by the name Arnab Bagchi. Nor do the hotel records say anything about the guy. She then visits the offices where Arnab had alleged having assignment at- The National Data Centre (NDC). Here too, the story is the same- No one has ever heard of an Arnab Bagchi! However, from a photograph that Vidya is carrying of a freshly married herself and Arnab, a senior staff member, going by the name of Agnes, at the NDC finds eerie similarity between the faces of Arnab and one Milan Damji, also an ex-employee of NDC. But as soon as Agnes attempts to dig into Milan Damji by the way of company records, she gets killed! The rest of the movie sees murders of two more people for the same reason- deepening the mystery to unimaginable levels! What happens to Arnab Bagchi? Who is Milan Damji? Why are the people trying to locate Milan Damji getting murdered? Is Vidya able to finally find her husband? For answers to all these very valid and mystifying questions, go and watch the movie ASAP!

There are many other reasons that make this one a must-watch. For the starters, apart from Vidya Balan, and another familiar face from Hindi cinema / TV, the rest of the cast is new to Bollywood. They probably belong to Tollywood, but all of them have given a stellar performance. Every actor seems to fit perfectly into his/her character, including the toad-like, smiling, dyspnoeic and lethargic murderer (there’s no suspense here- all this guy does thru the movie is kill people from the word go). Vidya Balan has done her part extremely well, and all credit to the director Sujoy Ghosh for a flawless job. The cinematography is excellent and one gets the feel of being in Kolkata even if one has never been there at all.

Like all thriller movies, this one too is song-less, except for a track, ‘Ekla cholo re’ which plays in the backdrop of Durga Pooja celebrations in the city. Well, I can say nothing more without running the risk of revealing even the gist of the suspense so I’ll stop here with an advice to go and see this one- more so if you love suspense-thrillers (I don’t know if the comparison is justified, but I was reminded of the Bourne series of movies while watching this one- Yes, it is that good!). And yes, don’t try to make any guesses- you won’t get it! :) :) 

My rating (maybe because I’m a fan of thriller stuff)- 4.5 on 5