CHUP: REVENGE OF THE ARTIST (2022)

Critic No. 300
Director: R. Balki

Written by: R. Balki, Raja Sen, Rishi Virmani

Produced by: Hope Production

Casts: Sunny Deol, Dulquer Salmaan, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Pooja Bhatt

Music: Amit Trivedi

Language: Hindi

Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller


SYNOPSIS: 

A lonesome florist with a new-found love interest and a psychopath killer who targets film critics in Mumbai. Are the two related? Inspector Arvind Mathur and Dr. Zenobia are about to find out.


REVIEW:

When I read the synopsis of the story before watching the film, I was really hooked on Balki’s indirect commentary on film critics. At a concept level, Balki and his team of writers (Raja Sen and Rishi Virmani) have a virgin plot that focuses on the life of the film critics, whose vocation has never really been explored in mainstream Indian cinema. 


Not only the premise is interesting, but after the inciting incident has been introduced, the film travels a jet speed uncovering various deaths of film critics with a poetically shot romantic track that parallelly runs together. Even though I enjoyed how they linked the method of death to the star rating that each critic is giving, after a while the film drags on with not much progress, especially after the killer is revealed. No surprises of course in the suspense the film tries to conceal but we are just left hanging to find out the big motive of the killer.


This is where film flounders. The flashback and third act are surprisingly underwhelming and the reason for the killing just feels like a rant of a failed artist. Thus suddenly, we are left with no empathy. Dulquer Salman is no doubt impressive in his role and carries the inconsistent story to reach its shore. None of the other characters shine for me except Pooja Bhatt’s short but magnetic cameo. 


Despite the flaws in the writing, Balki succeeds to create an eerie atmosphere throughout and gets his serial killer tropes right with Vishal Sinha’s exquisite shots and a hauntingly brilliant background score recreated from yesteryear chartbusters like ‘Jaane kya tune kahi’ and ‘Yeh Duniya agar mil bhi jaaye’ from Guru Dutt’s classic ‘Pyaasa’.



VERDICT:

R.Balki comes up with a juicy serial killer premise that thrills you at first only to get bogged down by its inconsistent writing and an unconvincing final act.


CELLULOID METER- 3/5:




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