My eyes, my eyes! How do I unsee Nirdosh, the whodunit starring Arbaaz Khan, Ashmit Patel, Manjari Fadnis and Mahek Chahal, which made me want to pluck my eyes out?
Those were my exact sentiments after watching the ridiculously painful murder mystery. Punctuated by shoddy writing, collective bad acting, cliched dialogues and juvenile sub plots, this murder mystery is likely to push any unsuspecting viewer to stage a walkout even before the killer is revealed.
But for those who decide to brave it till the end, those crispy nachos and that gooey, criminally calorific cheese are a good distraction.
Nirodsh begins with the arrest of a harried-looking Mumbai-based media professional Shinaya Grover (Fadnis) and she’s the prime suspect in the murder of her smarmy neighbour (Mukul Dev). Khan plays inspector Lokhande, a rakish cop who’s assigned the high-profile murder case.
From the outset, we are told that his ways of conducting investigations are unconventional (read he takes pride in police brutality) and repeatedly boasts about his unblemished track record in nabbing culprits. He’s also prone to snarling bombastic dialogues to his suspects like: “hospital and police stations are the only two places from where there’s no guarantee that you will ever return”. We are glad that cinema halls don’t feature in his list.
From the beginning, it’s clear that Khan has the grand ambition to play the super cop in this film. While his hugely successful brother Salman Khan could pull off playing a cheeky police officer called Chulbul Pandey in the Arbaaz-produced (and directed) Dabangg series, his sibling is relatively uncharismatic to pull off a tough-as-nails cop role. His face remains wooden as he rattles off statistics about his own success rate, but the same couldn’t be said about Fadnis, who’s gratingly screechy and hysterical in most scenes. Ashmit Patel, who plays Gautam, her supportive husband, isn’t any better.
Of the unimpressive lot, it’s only Chahal and Dev who try to inject some believability to their grey roles. But the murder mystery, laced with betrayal, blackmail and seduction, doesn’t have enough teeth to grip us.
There are no redeeming features in Nirdosh. Watch this at your own risk.
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Check it out!
Film: Nirdosh
Cast: Arbaaz Khan, Manjari Fadnis, Ashmit Patel, MukulDev and Mahekk Chahal.
Director: Pradeep Rangwani and Subrato Paul.
Stars: 1 out of 5.
