The Body

The Body is the official Hindi remake of the highly appreciated 2012 Spanish film El Cuerpo (The Body). Without going into comparisons with the original that I haven't seen or being biased by the unkindly critical comments, I must say that The Body is a taut thriller that often borders on the belief of the supernatural and comes across as eerie. The director Jeethu Joseph (of Drishyam fame) has kept the running time to just above two hours which ensures that the viewer interest remains intact.

Shot fully in Mauritius, The Body deals with the death of a successful business tycoon Maya Puri (Sobhita Dhulipala) aged 29. The cause of death is originally assigned to a massive heart attack, but problems arise for her husband Ajay Puri (Emraan Hashmi) when her body disappears from the mortuary without a trace and he is summoned by the police to the forensic laboratory for an interrogation. The rest of the film is a flashback about the reconstruction of the events leading to her death.

Emraan Hashmi delivers a stereotypical performance and appears disinterested at times, perhaps in a bid to create an alibi for himself. Sobhita Dhulipala is quite impressive, swinging between a controlling wife and boss, and a practical joker who drives her husband to a point of nervousness on several occasions. Vedika Kumar plays the role of Emraan Hashmi's extramarital love interest and has a limited role. But it's Rishi Kapoor in the role of the investigating officer who delivers a punchy and gritty performance. His dialogues are clever and witty too.

The Body had the potential of becoming an extraordinary thriller but falls short in some elements. Emraan Hashmi is partly responsible for it by delivering a disengaged performance and failing to match up to Sobhita Dhulipala's energy. The other aspect is that the film appears low key and fails to build on the supernatural effects it created to take it to a high. Nevertheless, it's a movie that has a fantastic suspense and its finale comes as a load of surprise. Go on, if you are a suspense buff, don't miss it.

Poor remake of the original movie, too slow. Don't waste your time watching this one. Nothing in the movie deserves to be appreciated. I think the director was in a hurry to wind up. A soulless movie

As is so often with Hindi movies,the insertion of unnecessary songs not only broke the rhythm and suspense it diluted the quality of this very good movie viz."The Body". At 1.45hrs the length was perfect so no complaints on that front,but the songs were a major hindrance. Like "Badla" this film was inspired by a Spanish movie,but the difference here is that "Badla" maintained the tension/suspense/drams from the first scene right to the last scene and ended up in my opinion being much much better than the original itself. But alas ,foolishly the 2-3 songs ruined that suspense to a great extent ,otherwise it would have been much better than it what it finally turned out to be. Rishi and Emraan were very good in the picture and Emraan's very very pretty girlfriend Ritu was competent.The rest of the cast was below average especially the girl who played Emraan's wife Maya. 7/10

What worked:

• the screenplay is pleasantly good, adding thrills and extra spices into the narrative. The movie's plot is interesting, making the viewers show flexibility on their interpretations of the story. One of the reasons the screenplay worked maybe is because it is a remake of a great international thriller.

What did not work:

• run time; there is no denying that the screen time could have been shorten by cutting down all the songs. They brought no charm or added any flavor to the story, instead made it hard to watch and making the viewers feel detached from the thrills that the could have garnered. Also, we can accept the distractions used for the movie but the movie failed to make a very strong conclusion that the original promised. It's not a bad movie overall but the execution could have been done better.

Final verdict: recommended for a one time watch

Generous with 10 cos I am tired of the same ethnocentric Bollywood films. Tired of the Bollywood films distorting history. After having already seen the original in 2018 n having posted a review of it, three things really pulled me into seeing this official remake : Hashmi, Joseph n Shobhita. Fellas who haven't seen the original will enjoy the twist. Oh! by the way the 4th gud point is the acting of Rishi Kapoor.