My Wife's Murder

The sad subject of this offering is a film engineer, a henpecked father of two whose paranoid shrew of a wife accuses him unremittingly of sleeping with his younger, attractive assistant. There is absolutely nothing going on between the two, but after pushing him too far, he strikes her, she falls back, hits her head, and we have one dead wife bleeding on the carpet.

What he should do now, but of course doesn't, is summon the emergency services; he might even talk his way out of it, but he decides to dispose of the body, incredibly ineptly for a man who should know better. Having no option but to report her missing, he does so, and her body turns up quickly. At this point the detective on the case should have turned up at his home with a warrant, and that would have been the end of it, but perhaps they do things differently in India. At any rate, the assistant is drawn unwittingly into the plot, then wittingly covers for him. Obviously this can have only one outcome, and it is not a good one, rather amusing though is the way English creeps into the dialogue in many places. Okay, it is the lingua franca of the Universe, but it may be that fifty years from now every living language contains a smattering of it, those that don't already. There is also a cameo breakfast scene in which the detective, taking an ear-bashing from his own nagging wife, realises what has probably happened and is obviously thinking there but for the grace...

After the first few reels, one feels that full blown movie was an overkill for the plot and perhaps telly was best suited. Mid-way you feel that its not even suited for small-screen. As you reach to the end of it, you feel that it was unwise to have attempted it. After a point, not only it starts to drag but also gets silly. And the lame ending sinks the movie further deep.

Anil Kapoor delivers a noteworthy performance. Perhaps one of the first times I have seen a resilient character who uses more of body language to communicate.

Suchitra Krishnamurthy leaves an impression as a nagging wife. Pity she gets bumped by the time you settle in with the popcorn's.

Nandana Sen is a perfect cast for the role. Sadly its the writing of the character which doesn't fit very well.

Rajesh Tandon does a good job for the character he is given.

Boman Irani gets to play an interesting character. Sadly he is not the brightest crayon to solve the mystery (and as rightly pointed by his wife in the movie, gets job promotions for other reasons).

Its only the performance of the actors which saves the movie. There is no doubt that technically the movie is top-notch, especially coming from RGVs Factory its kinda expected. Pity if content would have given at least half of the attention, it would have a different story altogether.

Its not yet aired on small screen yet, and no rocket science to guess why!

When Anil Kapoor will look down on his Bollywood's career lane, this work will remind him of the actor he always had in him.

This is one of those rare movies from Bollywood that remained completely honest to the genre. So different that if this was dubbed in English many including me would have considered it to be a Hollywood venture without having a moment of doubt, because you wouldn't find anything in it that is typical trademark of Bollywood like unnecessary inclusion of dance numbers, songs, desperate attempt to switch between genre to serve a good for nothing masala (spicy) stuff, and most importantly the running time.

Although every cast member gave their best not to forget Boman Irani who was slowly making his mark in the Indian film industry (now a well established brand), it was Anil Kapoor all the way who made this work so mesmerizing.

What worked: The movie is successful in regards to its tone and the flow of the movie. Despite the ups and downs in the narrative, the climate remains intact and engaging which makes it an interesting watch. The biggest strength of the movie has to be its simplicity as a result the story remained within the reach of an audience but also giving us option of interpretation. Overall, it's a fine watch

What did not work: The movie could have been much better had the writers took care of attendance to details. Also, the movie gets entangled and loses the tone in the final part of the movie making it a melodramatic average watch Final verdict: recommended for its tone

I saw Anil Kapoor in "Om Jai Jagdish", "Rishtey" and "Armaan", three movies that he excelled as an actor. If there are two Actors that have the range and the depth-that would be him and Urmila Matondkar. The title is misleading since the movie is more moralistic than a thriller-but there are some tense moments that I will not divulge. The Ravi's character should have had more background-we should have seen his good time and bad times with Suchitra instead I felt like I walked in late to the theatre and missed something. Boman Irani's character in the lines of "Columbo" with Peter Falk, fills the slower or less tensedull parts. Anil Kapoor is riveting to say the least. After AB, he is the finest actor to grace the Indian Screen. Yet another good movie by RMG Banner.