Two-time National Award winning director Dibakar Banerjee (‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’, ‘Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!’, ‘Love, Sex Aur Dhokha’, ‘Shanghai’, one of the four films in ‘Bombay Talkies’) makes a movie on Byomkesh Bakshi; expectations do soar. The character actually based on author Sharadindu Bandhyopadhyay’s short stories made into movies in Bengal 
(a successful franchise still running) would be fondly remembered by most others because of the TV Series in 1993. Probably… Banerjee himself chose to make a film on Byomkesh as people out of Bengal would still relate to him more than Feluda, a comparatively more famous character from Oscar-winning Satyajit Ray who himself went on to direct a series based
on him; his son continues to keep the character alive with his own version of movies. Quite interestingly, Ray had also attempted at making a Byomkesh film.
1940’s. Calcutta. World War 2 is at its peak. The city is threatened by Japanese bombings; there are blackouts and warning sirens every now and then. At such a time, Byomkesh (Sushant Singh Rajput) is all set to graduate. A college mate, Ajit (Anand Tiwari) walks up to him one day with a case. His father is missing. Byomkesh moves to the boarding house where Ajit’s father stayed for a while before he went missing owned by a certain Dr. Anukul Guha (Neeraj Kabi). As Byomkesh unravels the mystery, he realizes this is no simple assignment. He is out there to save Calcutta and it is just his first case. I’ll refrain from revealing the plot even a tad more as it will spoil the suspense for you.
Dibakar Banerjee makes a movie based on the author’s characters but to my knowledge, it isn’t based on any of his stories. Hence, cinematic liberties are taken and rightly at that. However, this has its own share of pros and cons. The simplicity is not really retained in his take and ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy’ (the ‘y’ instead of ‘i’ for some reason I fail to understand) turns out to be a great-looking period film with some stunning cinematography but it doesn’t
work wonders as a thriller which it ought to be. His is a reboot with some historic relevance and if you don’t have an idea about it, you will take time to understand and even when you do that, you will wonder and ponder and get lost in between; not because it has too many suspicious characters but because it tends to be a long and lousy film at times. 1940’s Calcutta is captured brilliantly (a special mention for Greek Cinematographer Nikol Andritsokis) and people from the city (including me) will love it. But that itself is not enough to make a good film. The director does manage to give us a few good moments but none of them nail-biting and that is where he fails miserably. The plot goes over-the-top and when the suspense is revealed in the end, you aren’t really surprised even if you probably didn’t guess. A whodunit thriller is most fun when it has enough moments that can have you jump in your seat. There are no songs but the background music attempts to build up a thrilling atmosphere.
Sushant Singh Rajput plays Byomkesh really well. Yes; you do take some time to accept him as the character but once you do that, you realize he gets it right. Anand Tiwari is okay in a role that doesn’t demand much. Neeraj Kabi is good though he tends to over-act towards the end. Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee who has also been a part of the recent Bengali Byomkesh films looks good but can barely act. The supporting cast including Meiyang Chang and newcomer Divya Menon are adequate.
Watch it or not: Only if you don’t mind an average thriller filmed well or if you live away from Calcutta and want to get nostalgic seeing it.
At the Box Office: Opening collections would be decent and some good reviews will add up to it but I don’t see it being a success story.
My Verdict
3
While the next Bond or Agent Hunt movie is ready for release, I sincerely feel we have better and more intelligent detective characters here; Byomkesh is one. He just needs a better film. I am giving 2 plus an extra 1 for the cinematography.
