Andhadhun
Year: 2018
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Cast: Ayushman Khurrana, Radhika Apte, Tabu, Navin Nischal

With films like Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddar and Badlapur, Sriram Raghavan has already proved his directorial finesse in the crime-thriller genre. In Andhadhun he adds a new black humorous shade to his favourite genre.

It is practically impossible to give even a gist of this plot without revealing a secret or two, so I will refrain from that. This very fact should tell you that the storyline is clever and hides many things in plain sight. (Pun intended!)

What is it about? To tell you without any spoiler, Andhadhun is a story of outwardly normal people, who get blinded by either ambition, lust or greed to commit a series of crazy crimes of varying degrees. The main characters include a talented musician (Ayushmann Khurrana) and his girlfriend (Radhika Apte); an old actor (Navin Nischal) and his wily wife (Tabu); a dumb inspector (Manav Vij) and his possessive better half (Ashwini Kalsekar); a struggling doctor (Zakir Hussain) and his street cronies.  

The fun part is that the story unravels these flawed self-centered characters, and their despicable acts, in as matter-of -fact, tongue-in-cheek manner as simply taking chocolates out of their wrappers. The situational dark humor is milked to the max, leaving in the audience in splits in many cleverly conceived scenes. Crisp dialogues, interesting characterizations and natural performances, all add up to make for an enjoyable, intelligent comic thriller.

The first half with its twists and turns is near perfect. The second half turns a bit too grim and gross at times but gets its act together in time to dish out an intriguing ending.

Even though the acting cast does a wonderful job, Andhadhun is mainly a writing-cum-directorial triumph. It is certainly one of the best black comedies to come out of Bollywood.

Rating

4 Stars