Ittefaq

Brewing something unusual concept in the category of crime thrillers. Just surround between a flat and police station the story carried through the narration among the characters. They organize their plots on their own concerns with resembles the narrative pattern that can be seen in the magnum opus of Kurasowa's Rashomon. More than the case of direction, the film blend with the power packed writing of script. Anyway, it was something a good crime thrillers among the bollywood movies.

This movie is a really good suspense thriller, and in my experience Bollywood films are generally much longer than this, usually 2.5 hours or more, and this one wasn't even 2 hours. I don't know much about suspense films in Bollywood, this is the first one by the industry that I have seen and I really enjoyed it. The acting performances are all great, especially by the police officer, played by Mr. Akshay khanna. I watched Sidharth in a lovely film called Kapoor and Sons and he was great in this one as well. The background score was terrific too. I read that it is actually based on an original film from 1969. Interestingly I recognize the lead actor in that one by the name Rajesh Khanna, as he was mentioned frequently in the amazing film Neerja that came out last year in 2016. So I will make sure to watch the original Ittefaq soon as well.

Ittefaq is said to have been inspired by the 1969 classic of the same name by Yash Chopra. Indeed, there are similarities in the plot and some of its elements, but this film has pretty much a story of its own which takes an altogether different direction. The film is a very good production - it is well shot, it enjoys the benefits of high production values, from camera to sound, and above all, it is successfully suspenseful and tense thanks to good writing and direction. The most enjoyable element in the narrative style is the Rashomon effect, namely the way in which flashbacks are presented: each character recounts their version of the story and the flashbacks are presented accordingly, so we end up having a nice repetition of multiple flashback scenes based around the same incident and which are very similar, but with twists and changes in core details. This creates a fascinating watch for the most part despite the inclusion of some unnecessary proceedings, especially towards the end.

Ittefaq.is overall quite well played, although the acting is not as important as the story. Sidharth Malhotra has everything it takes to be a lead in Hindi films, including looks and presence, and acting-wise he is quite okay even if he is suited for very specific types of roles. He is just too wholesome and decent looking to be credible for anything less than a good human being and it's obviously a compliment. Sonakshi Sinha is good for the role and quite attractive even if her presence is felt much less. Needless to say, it is Akshaye Khanna who leads the film with his excellent performance as the tough cop. The film has some good turns from the character actors, by the way, especially from Ajay Jadhav who is consistently and effortlessly funny as Tambe. Overall, then, a nice thriller which I didn't like as much as liked the original. Like the original though, the film has a very poor ending. Here, I found it awfully contrived, predictable and unconvincing, but so are many other films of the genre, so let it be. It is worth watching.

The director of this film seems to have worked hard to give his audience the chills and thrills that they want to see in such a movie, and he succeeds too. They audiences will remain hooked throughout making guesses only to be proved wrong. The film has an unpredictable climax and this makes it a watchable thriller too. However, in midst of all that there are some questions that remain there till the end. In acting, Sonakshi Sinha disappointingly has put up a week show. Akshay Khanna is awesome while Siddharth Malhotra does what he always does. Mandira Bedi has nothing to do in her cameo and the remaining cast is okay. I will go with 9/10 because such movies deserve being made in Bollywood.

This movie was a pack of suspense, everyone should watch. It was a good Indian movie that i watched in a long time. Star cast was good, story line was good and ending was not abrupt so thumbs up on that. 8/10 in my oppnion, a must was :).