Black??? Movie Review: Wickedly Funny In Bits And Parts

What happens when a man realises that his wife is cheating on him and that her lover is married to a rich woman? He starts blackmailing the lover, of course! This is the premise of Abhinay Deo’s Blackmail starring Irrfan Khan, Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh, Divya Dutta and others.

Deo made his directorial debut with Delhi Belly, which was immensely successful and he has returned to his favourite genre (crime comedies) with Blackmail. But will this film prove to be as appreciated as his whacky debut? Read on...

The dour Dev (Khan) works in a company that makes toilet paper and spends his time playing games on his computer instead of going home to his wife Reena (Kulhari) after office hours. When he decides to surprise her one day on the advice of an office pal, he discovers his wife in bed with dumb jock Ranjeet Arora (Arunoday), her former lover, who married Dolly (Divya Dutta) for her money. Instead of catching them with their pants down, Dev decides to blackmail Ranjeet, leading to darkly hilarious consequences and multiple crimes.

For some reason, Khan seemed distracted in this film and it is quite clear that this is not one of his best roles, though he does provoke a few guffaws. Kirti has done a decent job while Arunoday is quite earnest and has put in his efforts. Divya doesn’t have much to offer and Omi Vaidya still seems to be suffering from a 3 Idiots hangover. Anuja Sathe Gokhale, who plays Dev’s deceptively mild subordinate Prabha, is quite good and we hope to see more of her in other films to come. Pradyuman Singh is strictly average while Gajraj Singh as a ‘cheap’ private detective is hilarious.

As for the story, I feel that the trailer was much funnier than the actual film. Though the main plot is about how Dev blackmails his wife’s lover, the director indulges himself by wasting time in sub-plots involving Khan’s post-office hours activities and his boss, amongst other things. Had the plot been crisp, I believe Blackmail would have been more enjoyable, but Deo’s habit of equally focusing on all the other characters apart from the three leads, may prove to be his undoing. Another grouse that I had with the film is that the narrative seems incomplete when it ends, as if Deo forgot to address certain issues before calling for the climax.

All in all, Blackmail is not Deo’s best work yet, though the film is wickedly funny in bits and parts.