Durgamati is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Durgamati film solid: Arshad Warsi, Bhumi Pednekar, Mahie Gill, Jisshu Sengupta, Karan Kapadia, Anant Mahadevan
Durgamati film director: G Ashok
Durgamati film ranking: One and a half stars
Deep within the jungles, there lies a ’haunted haveli’, the place the locals worry to tread. A girl is stored captive inside its mouldering confines. Who’s she? Who’re the individuals questioning her? What’s her crime? And is there actually a vengeful ‘bhoot’ floating about in that haveli?
In fact, life might be stranger than fiction, and there are issues on this world that nobody can clarify. That’s what ‘horror-thrillers’ are meant for, and if you wish to go down that path, it’s a must to make sure that the viewers will fall for it, hook, line and several other sinkers. However there are zero thrills or chills in Durgamati, the Hindi remake of the Tamil-Telugu bilingual Bhaagmathie, by the identical director. The entire thing, which stretches for an inordinate 2.5 hours, is nearly solely unintentionally hilarious.
A straight-arrow neta (Warsi) offers the heave-ho to his dodgy youthful brother. His devoted private assistant, Chanchal Chauhan, IAS (Pednekar) is languishing in jail on what’s clearly a trumped-up cost. The love of her life, an ultra-idealistic social employee, retains elevating his voice for ‘the unvoiced’. All of a sudden, Chanchal finds herself in the midst of a CBI investigation, geared towards the sincere neta, led by a frowny, closely Bangla-accented officer known as Satakshi Ganguli (Gill).
Questions abound. Why is an official ‘pooch-taacchh’ being held in a haunted haveli? Who is aware of? Why is the suspect left to her personal units all by herself in a haveli which has creaky locked doorways, and shadows flitting on the partitions? Good query. Simply what’s going on? The one factor we’re positive of, as long-time viewers, that any neta just like the one Warsi performs needs to be deeply suspicious. Because the plot factors unravel, there’s nothing to do however sit again and chortle.
The design division’s exhausting work—cobwebby furnishings, scrolls with fading paint, thunder and lightning—is eye-catching. Everybody else could be very earnest, particularly Pednekar who takes her job as a woman-who-may-be-possessed very critically, brandishing trishuls and rolling her eyes. Warsi smirking is healthier than Warsi lecturing. Alongside comes the ‘comedy observe’ with characters holding ‘numbu aur rudraksh ki mala’, intoning: iss ghar mein bhoot ka saya hai. You don’t say. The one one who appears to be in on the joke is Gill, as she goes about attempting to brow-beat all suspects, which incorporates the stated ‘bhoot’, in her on-and-off accent.
It is best to hear Gill say closely: I don’t like negativity. Inform me should you didn’t crack up.
© IE On-line Media Providers Pvt Ltd
