Adv. Achinta Aich

Adv. Achinta Aich (2024): the new Bengali so-called Courtroom Drama does not seem to be that much impressive. The story line is no doubt good. But the biting reality is unlike the famous courtroom dramas of Bollywood, the Bengali legal drama has never been that much successful. This one is no exception. The movie seems to follow the pattern of the Hindi courtroom dramas particularly the "Criminal Justice" Web Series starring Pankaj Trpathi and Manoj Bajpayee starrer" Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai" to a significant extent. However, unlike "Criminal Justice" or" Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai" Web Series, Adv. Achinta Aich (2024) has drastically failed to impact that much which becomes evident after watching this Web Series Plot- The Plot of the Movie better falls in the category of Crime Thriller and Police Investigation more than a Courtroom Drama. The Movie begins with a boring scene of debate over ownership of a goat which is utterly objectionable. This is humiliating to the dignity of the Indian legal system. No doubt, the logic behind such objectionable content is to depict that Achinta Aich is not a competent lawyer. But this could have been depicted in a different manner. Does a movie maker have right to defame Indian judiciary for the sake of narrative of film? Is this a sensible approach? The writer framing a theme and presenting the entire affair of the Movie as a legal battle between two criminal lawyers needs to maintain the minimum dignity of the judicial process.

The movie revolves round convicting a murder case. A person dies as the Movie begins. The initial investigation and statements of the eye witness confirm the perpetrator just after the murder. The narrative goes on as the endeavours keep going by the lawyers to prove the guilty and the innocent. Rather the movie is mainly about the initiatives of the Defence lawyer to prove that the widow of the deceased person is innocent against the whim that she has been already identified criminal by the family members of the deceased and the police. But ultimately advocate representing the Defence prove the innocent and the judgment comes in her favour. The movie ends with the court judgment against the real culprits and an order to reopen another murder case happened 27 years ago. Although, there are certain twists in the course of the Movie, but its ending is quite stereotypical. However, the finishing of the court proceeding is dull and mere repetition

Characterization -

Saswata Chatterjee's performance looks monotonous here. It seems that the famous actor has become a type character. The shade of the role of Police Officer is obvious in the role of lawyer which is never expected from an actor of his status. The Web Series and the role played by Saswata prove that he is yet to attain versatility to perform in different types of roles.

Ritwick Chakraborty- The actor has performed really well in this Web Series. But his acting seems to be impacted by his Detective thriller "Gora". Ritwick has failed to break his Gora image.

Surangana Bandyopadhyay: The actress has done well in the role of the widow portrayed as the murderer of her husband. The simplicity that the character needs to do justice with the role is there. But the Web Series show that she is yet to evolve to perform in challenging characters with multi-dimensional potentiality.

Other Characters are not highlighted with that much importance. Similarly, there are some unnecessary characters in the Movie.

Remarks- You may watch this. But there is doubt whether you like it. The Movie is stereotypical considering different dimensions.

As a layman viewer devoid of technical knowledge, definitely enjoyed the series..the story was engaging and there are many such series which may not be artistically oscar material but very enjoyable none the less. One could guess the end and despite Saswata, his role could definitely have been explored more. There are multiple back stories that were not followed up on which helped keep the series to a readonable length. Probably these were left either for subsequent sequels or left just to keep the overall length manageable. For e.g. Ritwik's clash with Sawata, "Ila"'s back story, exploring Surangana's relationship etc About the good part, at the risk of repeating myself, the storyline was enjoyable and suspense was reasonable.

Talented actors, Good storyline, good comedy sequence with poor directional capability from Joydeep Mukherjee and poor dialogue by the Script writer. It wasted the talented Sashwata Mukherjee's acting by not only providing him repetitive dialogues also the character misses some basic rules of Courtroom Drama. I think director needs to research more on script before starting any project. Ritwick was flawless with his mind blowing acting skills. He himself is worth enough to watch this series. If Hoichoi makes Season 2, I think there are more talented directors are there to make this series more impressive.

I had high expectations from this as there were two big actors squaring against each other in a courtroom drama. But it failed miserably. The intensity was missing. Saswata Chatterjee was hyped as a big shot lawyer who never loses a case. But he surrendered meekly. Rithwick is a wonderful actor but he's got to get out of that same 'go-bechara' kind of acting that he does every time. Hoichoi definitely needs to come up with better content. The script is good but the screenplay is poor. Some characters were clearly overacting while others were below par. The entire screenplay seems a cocktail of various Hindi webseries. Rithwick tried his best to a Pankaj Tripathi of Criminal Justice but it was poor. There were unnecessary dialogues and situations created, taken from series such as Scoop and many others. All in all, disappointing.

I am a great fan of movies from down south and watch selective Hindi movies and almost no current movies from Bengali, Marathi, etc. Languages that I am able to comprehend.

The Covid times changed my reading and watching styles. The long lockdown made me explore new authors on Kindle with a veritable abuse of Kindle Unlimited limits and movies and series in all languages on OTT. While browsing the apps I discovered Hoichoi, which deals with Bengali content and loved its all pervading strong content and collection.

Several Bangla actors from both sides of the border caught my eye apart from seasoned people like Prosenjit and Rituparno.

Rithwick featured in many of them and caught my eye with Macher Jhol and the superlative Vinci da.

This series is a courtroom drama based on a murder accused from a very prominent family and the usual family drama and blaming and shaming and controversies.

The fare s bland and is brought to high levels with a super performance by Rithwick who stands upto Saswata (a strong actor but somehow not very well written here) very well with equal doses of trepidation, dry humour, sensitivity and strength.

This is everything that Jaha Bolibo Shotto Bolibo 2024 should be but is so far not (watching 4th out of 6 episodes with Mimi no Rithwick).

This is a series that is worth watching.