Kadak Singh (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – AK Srivastava an officer of the Department of Financial Crimes is diagnosed with retrograde amnesia despite which he solves the case of a Chit Fund Scam by listening to different perspectives of who he was and how he came to the hospital.

My Take – Considering director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury delivered mightily with the social thriller Pink (2016), expectations were always going to be high for his next Hindi venture. And though he missed the mark with the Yami Gautam starrer Lost (2023), the high-stakes premise of his latest Zee5 release seemed like the right kind of venture for the filmmaker to live up to promise. Sadly, the execution is anything but.

Delivering a psychological thriller without the psychology or the thrill. In an attempt to blend social drama and thriller elements writer Ritesh Shah (Sardar Udham, Batla House) falls short of creating a compelling narrative for either.

Retrograde amnesia, a detective story, and a father who has tossed away his familial responsibilities for his professional duties, the film manages to pack a lot of these conceptually alluring elements in the 128 minutes long feature.

But none of the issues are given the appropriate space to pan out properly. And despite being aware of its thriller status, it only moves into that aspect in the final act. Add to that the drab visuals, tight close-ups and loosely conjoined story traps, one can’t help but feel disappointed when the film ends.

More criminal, however, is its wastage of its fine actor and title. Sure, this isn’t the first time Pankaj Tripathi has been wasted in a role that simply doesn’t come with the armrest of good writing to deliver his usual, self-assured performance from.

If you’re a fan of the actor and can overlook disappointments, give it a shot. Otherwise, there’s a plethora of Tripathi’s other films to enjoy without compromise.

The story follows AK Shrivastav (Pankaj Tripathi), an officer in the Department of Financial Crimes, who is suffering from retrograde amnesia after a failed suicide attempt during a massive fraud investigation.

While he can’t seem to remember anything about what happened to him, and how he landed here, his daughter Sakshi (Sanjana Sanghi), girlfriend Naina (Jaya Ahsan), colleague Arjun (Paresh Pahuja) and boss Tyagi (Dilip Shankar) take turns to tell him their respective versions of who he is and what place they hold in his life.

Not sure who to believe, assisted by his head nurse, Ms. Kannan (Parvathy Thiruvothu), AK continues to piece together what might have actually happened and unravel the financial scam case he was working on at the time.

Despite being fashioned as a Roshomon-style narrative, where interlocked stories keep coming to light as the characters start telling their side of the story, the film opts to be a humdrum family drama in the first hour and a predictable investigative saga in the next, with a tepid romantic subplot, in between. Even a post-coital conversation about what they are expecting from their relationship felt superficial because it is shoe-horned between two disjointed narratives.

It’s not a terrible premise to begin with except it is executed with such banal efforts that co-writers Viraf Sarkari, Ritesh Shah and Chowdhury‘s story never appears crisp, nor urgent. The narrative feels overstuffed and the pace is excruciatingly slow. If one were not aware that this is a suspense thriller beforehand, it would be hard to guess the genre till almost forty minutes into the film.

Here, director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury tries to bring out different layers in the narrative. The righteous, investigative officer here is interpreted as a slick, tightly-wrapped personality with a somewhat grey backdrop of familial and parental problems.

None of which make the film any stronger, or make us care for the man any better. The daughter, the protégé, the mistress, the nurse are all interesting tools, wasted in this vague, uninteresting exercise of just talking a victim through it. The resolution of the film is predictable and the thrill or satisfaction of solving the mystery is only fleeting.

Performances wise, Pankaj Tripathi delivers a decent turn that doesn’t significantly challenge the actor. Tripathi straddles the acutely different notes to his character effortlessly well. He particularly shines in the final act when solving the mystery, although the mystery itself lacks substantial depth. Parvathy Thiruvothu is understated yet effective.

Sanjana Sanghi manages to hold her own with a lot of finesse. The scenes between Tripathi and Sanghi in the hospital when she’s helping him with basic chores, are endearing. Jaya Ashan makes her presence felt in the limited screen time she has. Paresh Pahuja and Dilip Shankar are effectively consistence throughout. On the whole,‘Kadak Singh’ is a disappointing thriller that doesn’t live up to its potential despite Pankaj Tripathi‘s decent efforts.