A Killing in Kolkata

Directed by Arindam Sil, Ebar Shabor is a convincing Bengali whodunit in a season crowded with Feluda and Byomkesh. Unlike the latter two, Shabor (Saswata Chatterjee) is a police detective and has no airs about him. One Mitali (Swastika Mukherjee) gets murdered in the wee hours of a party at her house. Could it be the work of Mithu (Abir Chatterjee), the once-spurned husband, now in love with Mitali's sister Joyeeta (Payel Sarkar). Could it be a briefly-married to and now on hard times Pantu (Ritwick Chakraborty). Or could it be the flamboyant Samiran (Rahul Banerjee), spurned by Mitali? A well-woven storyline that keeps the viewer engaged, and while not truly twist-in-the-tale stuff, is definitely not a predictable thriller. In the crop of recent Bengali movies, this is a must-watch

14.5/20

Treasured

What would you do if you had a little treasure trove, like Pishima – or her ghost – did, say all of 5 kilos of gold? Would you bury it in hate and spite, use it as a tool for maintaining primacy and engendering conflict, driven by the ghosts of your own sad and troubled past? Or would you, over time, start believing in the goodness of human nature and start using the treasure trove to enable someone to start a business, re-unite a family, perhaps even fight for a cause? And all the while acknowledging the little voice inside you that well, encourages you to do otherwise. And this is where Goynar Baksho (The Jewellery Box, Bengali) pulls off an unexpected success, and even as the movie dilates and constricts rather asynchronously in parts, the central theme is rather well established

13/20

Missing Person

A harried and heavily pregnant Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan) arrives in Kolkata on the eve of the Pujas, and around the second anniversary of an attack on the Kolkata Metro. The mission – to find Arnab Bagchi – a husband who has gone missing since arriving in Kolkata on an assignment. The search for the techie husband proves pretty elusive – neither the National Data Centre, nor the police, seem to be able to unearth any meaningful leads. Vidya keeps at her mission – with the help of one police officer Satyaki (Parambrata Chatterjee) – in Kahaani - a movie that is mildly memorable for two reasons. Firstly, the movie shows more vignettes of Kolkata life than any Hindi movie that I can remember for quite a while. Second, true to the thriller genre, nothing in the movie is quite what it seems and the movie succeeds at the genuine element of surprise

13.5/20