Darin
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
bobbysing
Feeling the pre-release excitement created by its trailer with a difference, the most inviting feature of CHARLIE KE CHAKKAR MEIN (directed by Manish Srivastva) was the film being a 'rare' crime mystery, with Naseeruddin Shah playing the investigative officer/detective solving the given case. And since we haven't seen many films made in this particular genre in the last couple of decades of our Hindi film industry, so I was pretty excited being a die-hard fan of Hindi pulp fiction novels and all 'whodunit' thrillers made in the 'World Cinema' refreshing my grey cells.But sadly after watching the film, I am forced to reveal that CKCM neither gives you anything as per the promised made nor makes you feel the excitement or curiosity even once in its short duration of only about 100 minutes.Beginning on an experimental note, its opening 30 minutes are too heavy to grasp with the hand-held camera becoming the most annoying factor in several sequences. Plus with no engrossing moments as such except 'the deadly accident', the film fails to pull you in unexpectedly. Moreover with Naseer being there for hardly 10 minutes before the intermission it disappoints hugely delivering nothing as per the genre of an investigative crime thriller and isn't able to keep you guessing or glued to the screen with something engaging happening on the screen related with the investigations.However the biggest blow comes just a few minutes post intermission when the film simply finishes off, the moment you get to know the main culprit, frankly ruining whatever was left in the film taking the most avoidable turn in a 'whodunit' crime-thriller. (Explained post the review as the spoiler)In short, CKCM has a decent concept revolving around a strange case of multiple homicides caught on camera (installed by one of the victims only), and has a few noteworthy performances too (Anand Tiwari & more) along with the veteran Naseeruddin Shah impressing in his individual scenes as usual. But what doesn't work in the film is its confused story progression, over-experimental execution, irritating camera- work, uninteresting background score and the typical filmy culmination of the mystery resulting in a big opportunity missed by the team that had all the innovative elements to make it rightly.As a result, while walking out of the theater one begins thinking that with another film of this genre sinking badly at the box office, will we ever witness a great murder mystery from Hindi cinema in the years ahead serving our grey cells well?(Major Spoiler Ahead revealing it all)The avid followers/readers of 'Investigative Crime Thrillers' would readily agree to the fact that the most ridiculous and annoying conclusion in any of the film/novel/serial of this particular genre is - when its revealed that the key investigator of the case only was the main culprit behind the games being played since the beginning, making a big fool of its readers/viewers quite pathetically. And CHARLIE KE CHAKKAR MEIN commits the same avoidable mistake wasting a huge opportunity given…..unfortunately.
