Hindi
07 Jul 2023 | U/A | 146 Mins
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A still from Neeyat (Pic Credit: Prime Video India / YouTube)
One of the most important features of a whodunit is that you can’t wait for the film to end, to know who the real culprit is. I had the same feeling while watching director Anu Menon’s Neeyat, however, my reason was completely different. I wanted the movie to end because it took way too long to reach its conclusion, and by the time it did I had lost interest. Read on to know what worked for me in this Vidya Balan starrer, and what didn’t.
Plot
On a stormy night in Scotland, exiled businessman Ashish Kapoor aka AK (Ram Kapoor) celebrates his birthday at a grand castle in the presence of his near and dear ones. While tension between the attendees is visible from the first frame, things started going downhill when AK announced a crucial decision, which involved detective Mira Rao (Vidya Balan). This change in event leads to a chain of events, and what happens thereafter is for you to see in Neeyat.
What’s Hot?
The most stunning aspect of Menon’s world is its setting. The whole incident happens in one house and its surrounding area. Its isolated and creepy vibe was the perfect backdrop to narrate a suspense-thriller. While production designer Stacey Dickinson beautifully brought this vision to life, DOP Andreas Neo contributed equally by keeping most of the frames interactive and engaging. However, I do feel that the palace merely ended up being a prop for the story, rather than utilizing its nook and corners to add more thrill to the story.
Furthermore, background music helped elevate pompous sequences, while costume designer Aastha Sharma stayed true to the milieu.
What’s Not?
While the story is average, partly predictable, it is its execution which is even more faulty. Firstly, it takes forever to reach the murder, and then it keeps adding many unnecessary layers, which does nothing for the mystery part of the story. One of the most important aspects of a good suspense driven narrative is its pace, and screenplay writers Anu Menon, Priya Venkataraman, Advaita Kala and Girvani Dhyani along with editor Adam Moss could have focussed a little more on this aspect. The scenes seemed extremely choreographed and rehearsed, while Kausar Munir’s dialogues also don’t add any charm to this snore fest.
For instance, lines like ‘I need a volunteer’ could have easily been replaced by a dialogue that straight away ordered the required action. There are many smaller instances like these in the film that could have been worked upon to add speed to the narrative. Action supervised by Jamie B. Chambers is forgettable.
Performances
Vidya Balan’s portrayal of a CBI personnel is confusing and often frustrating during the narrative, but there is a reason behind that under confident depiction and the actress brings that to life beautifully on the big screen. However, I would like to add that from a genre perspective, I wish the makers would have taken some other route to portray that aspect of Mira Rao’s personality, because especially in the second half the lack of confidence really tests your patience as an audience.
Ram Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Shahana Goswami, Dipannita Sharma Atwal, Shashank Arora and Prajakta Koli live up to their parts, while Neeraj Kabi, Niki Walia, Amrita Puri and Danesh Razvi seemed misfit for their characters.
Final Verdict
Is film ki neeyat mein nahin, execution mein khot hai.
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