Main Aur Charles

Totally impressed by Randeep and Director Prawaal. Such an intense cinematography and correct actors to perform their individual role. But Honestly, Randeep has raised his respect in my eyes even more after watching this Mature Acting in this one.

Charles Sobhraj , nicknamed as "The Bikni Killer" and "The Serpant", is a French serial killer of Vietnamese and Indian origin, who preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s. The dark and intense thriller Main Aur Charles is a good attempt in recollecting the activities performed by Charles Sobhraj during his lifetime but falls little short of making it a perfect watch.

Based on the true story of criminal mastermind , Main Aur Charles gives a detailed description of his dark deeds told from the perspective of an Indian cop, Amod Kanth who looked into the case of serial killer.

From the director of critical acclaim films like Darna Marna Hain and 404:Error Not Found, Prawal Raman divulges into new territory of adapting a biography of a criminal using his knowledge of directing previous dark-thrillers and come up with intelligent, brutal and alluring plot. He defines each characters to tell their own version of Charles in the first half and uses the second half to present the main protagonist. The movie does not waste anytime with unnecessary song-dance routine and sticks to the main point which is the highlight of the film. Hats off to Raman for making it crispy and watchable film. The Tihar jail escape is well-executed. On the flip side, the screenplay sometimes looses the track and is unable to weave things around. Cinematography and art direction is excellent introducing to the 70's era with aplomb

Performance wise, you cannot think of anyone apart from Randeep Hooda playing the character of Charles Sobhraj. The actor perfectly gets into the character as it was tailor made for him. He adapts the charm and persona of Charles with ease. Richa Chadha is a delight to watch. Adil Hussain gives in a brilliant act as Indian cop, Amod Kanth.

Overall, Main Aur Charles is dark, intellectual and brutal film with brilliant performances. Good 3/5

– Ketan Gupta

Based on the life of notorious serial killer Charles Sobhraj, 'Main Aur Charles' is a richly acted biopic, about a notorious man. Even as a film, its decent, but not as sharp as one expects it to be.

'Main Aur Charles' is Inspired by true events and told from the perspective of respected Indian cop, Amod Kanth who handled the notorious case of serial killer, Charles Sobhraj.

'Main Aur Charles' aces as far the performances are concerned. Randeep Hooda is appropriately creepy as the serial killer, flaunting a french accent & alluring women with sheer effectiveness. Adil Hussain nails every bit of Amod Kanth, portraying the honest cop to the fullest. Richa Chadda is absolutely stunning as Mira, Charles's girlfriend, who, without any remorse, defends the criminal. Its an eerie performance, performed majestically.

On the flip-side, 'Main Aur Charles' is unevenly Written. Prawaal Raman's Screenplay begins on an excellent note & the series of events that follow, manage to arrest your attention aptly. Its the second-hour, that begins to fall. The pace drops & the drama in this hour, lacks the punch. Even the culmination, doesn't leave a big impact. Raman's Writing is great partly & ordinary otherwise. Raman's Direction, on the other-hand, oozes style. The Cinematography & The Editing, deserve a special mention.

On the whole, 'Main Aur Charles' stuns in parts, sadly, not entirely.

After a TV series or two and a documentary or two, the infamous Charles Sobhraj on the big screen. His story is certainly interesting and the TV series from the 1980s managed to translate his reported hypnotic charisma on the screen, as far as they could go in the 80's of course. And this is this movie's first problem, that when it tries to convey the atmosphere of the 1970's, it fails to do that but rather gives it the look of made-for-TV cinematography from the 80's. It's bad, really bad and poor acting doesn't help. I couldn't make it past the 30 minute mark. The director and the cameraman should go study modern Korean cinema to see how to pull off period atmosphere while still using modern cinematography technology and techniques.

Which brings me to a question; what is it with people from India and rating movies? Why do you keep giving Indian movies unrealistically high scores? With more reviewers they somewhat come down but it's still not realistic and there's no by nationality breakdown in the stats. You act as if it's somehow unpatriotic to give a movie from one's own country a bad score. It's not.

For those interested in Sobhraj I recommend Neville's book.

During the 1970s Charles Sobhraj committed at least 12 murders throughout Southeast Asia of tourists on the hippy trail. After spending 21 years in prison he was released in 1997 and retired comfortably as a celebrity in Paris, charging large sums of money for interviews and 15 million dollars for the rights to his life story for a movie. After he went to Nepal he was arrested by Nepal officials for the murders of 2 of his victims. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. . Main Aur Charles is a movie directed by .The notorious criminal played by Randeep Hooda. I went into the movie without knowing anything or any expectations. I purposefully didn't even watch the trailer of the movie before watching it.

Let me start with some nice things about the movie. There is a stranger but interesting humour depicted in the movie. Police is shown making hilarious ghoofups. There is also a custodial battle between the various state police to get the prize of catching shobraj

And the best part of the movie was that I forgot I was watching Randeep Hooda. He was hands down the best part of the movie. He was amazingly convincing as the protagonist. It reminded me of Jake Gylanhall's character In Night Cralwer. Richa Chaddha playing a law student & Adil Hussain playing Amod Kanth did a good job as supporting actors. The movie actually picks up pace in the second half and is worth the watch.

Now the bad part; As soon as the movie started my initials thoughts were that the movie was very confusing. We are introduced to the antagonist very quickly and little time is given to the develop the character. This was case for the entire first half. It felt very rushed to the point that it became even boring.

There is even a long 15 min sequence where people are talking about shobraj, we see newspaper clips etc. But it just helps in creating an Image and does nothing to help the viewer understand character. Throughout the movie, I felt the director was more interested in Creating the Image rather than dismantle the character.

The movie offers little to the audience with respect to any insight into Shobhraj's criminal mind. Why he does what he does. For a script to be strong we need to understand why a certain character it taking an action. The movie did not provide any clear answers.

The movie keeps narrating to us that Charles shobraj is hypnotic, brutal, intelligent and ruthless but it does not show what makes him as such. Many places where we could have expected an interesting dialogue, the scripts decides to take a shortcut, with saying annoying it gives us a distant shot of the characters talking and we are left to our own imagination.

The title of the movie suggests that its from the point of view of an officer who is chasing Charles. The film is weak in this area as well. We get no insights on the exact thought process that is motivating the police.

Making it more difficult was the fact that the movie didn't have any subtitles for any French or other languages used in the movie. Hindi movies don't go deep.. they are just surface.. didn't understand why Charles did what he did... hi psychology... it did not delve why he was charmer for women.... what is the psychology of women who fell for him...

I think the movie was afraid to admit that its about a serial killer. They added Bollywood masala to a real life horror story of brutality. The psychopathic mindset of this killer was not explored rather what we got a typical crime genre Bollywood movie. It wasn't a psychological portrait of Charles shobraj but a dumbed down version to make him look good on screen