You must have heard movies based on mix genre like
romantic-comedy or horror-sex movies but have you ever thought of an emotional
murder mystery, #Antarleen is exactly that mix of basic human emotion related
to the pain of being lonely, at the same time it is a whodunit murder mystery.
It starts with a small teaser of a suicide which sets the
mood of a thriller but soon after that it shifts a lighter mood. Many tourists
from different places of India are going to the hill station Kasouli. There are
variety of people with different motives like Kolkata Crime Branch’s senior
officer Aniket Sanyal (Kharaj Mukherjee) who is going to Kasouli just for a
vacation to overcome the pain of his wife’s demise, then there is Dutta family,
a Bengali family from Gurgaon who are on a vacation for a weather change for
their ailing mother (Mamata Shankar) who is on medication. There is Bidushi
Mukherjee (Sampurna Lahiri) who is on a vacation for a mood change after having
some problems in her professional life. Not all are there just for holiday
there is Prof Swami (Biswajit Sarkar) who has some personal work there and also
there is Anupama Jaiswal ,a trustee of convent school, who is just forced to be
there with her Driver Mahendra as their car have some problem during their
journey from Amritsar to Shimla. All these people stayed in a same lodge “Blossoms”
and spend a good time in their first evening but everything takes a new turn
when one of them gets killed in the first night itself. After this point it
turns into a murder mystery and Aniket Sanyal who was there just for a vacation
has to come back on his duty as an investigation officer of this murder, on
request of the local police. Later he is also joined by Bidushi as an assistant
who is also a narcotics dept officer. While doing their investigation they come
to know about some local residents who are also connected with some of the in
mates of the lodge and they also discover that everyone there in the lodge have
some secrets with them.
A murder mystery should have two qualities; it should have
pace and it should keep the suspense intact till the end. The film fails in the
first department, it is not a fast paced film, rather it is lazy with full of
emotional scenes which seems to be irrelevant. Though it fails to maintain pace
but yes it has maintained the suspense till the end. You can guess it partially
few minutes before the climax but still you cannot guess the total truth. The
good thing is at end when the mystery unfolds it gives the required shock value
and it will also justify the emotional moments which were appearing irrelevant
earlier.
Director Arindam Bhattacharya has chosen an unconventional
subject for his debut and has handled it quite well. In one movie he has proved
he is good in handling both emotional scenes as well as a thriller. Though
there is scope of improvement but still we should give him credit for his good
attempt.
There is a mix of actors with some seasoned actors and some
not so known faces. Some have done good job and some are not so convincing but
overall it is a good ensemble cast.
Kharaj Mukherjee normally keeps us entertaining in his comic
roles but here he has get a chance to do something different. We hardly have
seen him in a lead role that too as a detective and he has done it very well.
He has maintained the required smartness and poise for his character. There is
one emotional scene where he is remembering his wife and he is too good in that
scene. As an addition to that there is one song too in his voice.
Mamata Shankar is very natural as a lonely grandmother. Her
emotions looks so real on screen, we wish to see her more on screen. She too
has sung a sweet Rabindra sangeet and it is lovely to hear her voice. Biswajit
Sarkar is very impressive as the Tamil professor, he has really worked hard on
his Tamil accent and it sounds perfect. Sampurna Lahiri has got an important role
to play after a long time but sadly she could not utilise it fully. There is no
continuity in her performance in some scenes she is good in some she disappoints.
Rest of the cast is jut okay.
Among the technical team one man deserves the maximum credit
and he is the cinematographer, he has captured the beautiful valleys of Kasouli
wonderfully. After watching it you will definitely like to go there for an
outing. Also the nigh sequences have been shot with perfect lighting. The sound
design is also an integral part of a thriller and it is perfect. Ratul Shankar
who is a not a regular to Bengali movies have done good job with the music and
background score.
On final thoughts, it can be said that it is not an edge of
the seat thriller but it is a good attempt to make a thriller with some human
emotions mixed with it. It is a
refreshing film that will give you a satisfactory experience.
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