The biggest gamble that works for Irrfan Khan starrer Blackmail is the underplayed yet entertaining performances by most of the cast members . The mere synopsis of the movie is compelling enough to make you watch the movie with a brilliantly written script consisting of plot webs and well crafted jokes . That said, it is the sluggish screenplay that bothers the audience with some over-imposed jokes .
RUNDOWN:
Dev is a frustrated office worker who keeps on following the same office job for the past few years and has a dull married life . He is an unhappy man who pleasures himself by masturbating in the office washroom using the desk photos of wives of his respective colleagues daily just like clockwork which also accounts for him leaving his compound late. One day his mate Anand advices him to surprise his wife by getting her a bouquet of flowers and getting home early. Dev eagerly follows the plan and reaches home early just to catch his wife Reena with her boyfriend Ranjeet making love . Heartbroken Dev , instead of confronting them both, runs away from the scene and decides to blackmail Ranjeet as an anonymous identity for the sake of a hefty ransom. How this blackmail plays out is what forms the rest of the story.
PERFORMANCES:
Irrfan Khan’s performance as Dev is what one would expect from him. Khan lets his expressions and body language talk in this one and it’s a delight to watch him. The effortlessness with which he plays unembellished characters like these is one of his strengths.Kirti Kulhari isn’t given much to reside upon other than jut become the helpless looking wife of Dev.Arunoday Singh emerges as the most valuable player of the movie. His dim witted,alarmed playboy character is sure to be audience’s favourite. Divya Dutta as Ranjeet’s alcoholic mistress also deserves a special mention. Her solidity as an actress shows us why she is perfect for the role. Then. there is Omi Vaidya who plays Dev’s idiotic,overy-burdened boss who devises new plans to increase the market of his company’s product which is toilet paper. Omi tries very hard to make the role fruitful and humorous but the role itself is not written well, or I should say not suited best for him. Then there is Gajraj Arora playing the role of a middle class private detective , one which he excels. The remaining cast also lends a strong support.
I did not have much excitement or hope while going in to watch this movie due to Bollywood’s regular habit of ruining promising plot lines.And also some movies are flawed due to bad acting. Blackmail, however ,does not suffer from any of these cliches but the overly slow pace of the movie is it’s biggest shortcoming. The other major thing I did not like about this movie was that some puns were too over-imposed which left no impact on the audience whatsoever .The story however deserves full marks and so does the director Abhinay Deo,who makes our belief in this black comedy pretty much alive till the end. The cast takes it’s time to settle in with their characters and contributes to the story in a very triumphing way.There is a scene or two. which may disturb the family audience for a while but even the ending of the story will keep you guessing about the aftermath.
Coming to the technical aspects, the cinematography is pretty moderate as of what you’d expect with a comedy like this. The production design is pretty darn accurate representing the middle class homes and localities. The one thing which irked me was the background score which was really unfitting and had a large decibel for most part of the movie . The soundtrack however was overall average. On the whole Blackmail’s screenplay and cast performances make it an engaging movie but the slow nature of it somehow vandalises all the charisma of the movie. You may not have a complete barrel of laugh but will surely smile throughout the most parts.
