Durgamati is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Durgamati film forged: Arshad Warsi, Bhumi Pednekar, Mahie Gill, Jisshu Sengupta, Karan Kapadia, Anant Mahadevan
Durgamati film director: G Ashok
Durgamati film score: One and a half stars
Deep within the jungles, there lies a ’haunted haveli’, the place the locals worry to tread. A girl is saved 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?
After all, life may 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, you must be sure that the viewers will fall for it, hook, line and a number of 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 sort of fully unintentionally hilarious.
A straight-arrow neta (Warsi) offers the heave-ho to his dodgy youthful brother. His trustworthy 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’. Instantly, 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 must be deeply suspicious. Because the plot factors unravel, there’s nothing to do however sit again and chortle.
The design division’s arduous work—cobwebby furnishings, scrolls with fading paint, thunder and lightning—is eye-catching. Everybody else may be very earnest, particularly Pednekar who takes her job as a woman-who-may-be-possessed very severely, 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 making an attempt to brow-beat all suspects, which incorporates the mentioned ‘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.
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