Vodka Diaries Movie Review: Not Intoxicating Enough

Being a big fan of whodunits, I admit that I was rather eager to watch Kay Kay Menon’s Vodka Diaries after watching the trailer of the film, which is set in the snowy locales on Manali. However, on watching the film, I felt like having a couple of vodka shots to numb the pain. What exactly went wrong? Read here...

ACP Ashwini Dixit (Kay Kay Menon) has just returned from his vacation with his wife Sheeka (Mandira Bedi), when his assistant Ankit (Sharib Hashmi) informs him about a murder at the nearby night-club named ‘Vodka Diaries’. As Dixit starts to investigate, more bodies pile up and soon, the dedicated cop is haunted by nightmares and hallucinations. What happens next forms the rest of the plot.

Kay Kay is at his intense best as usual, though even that does not help salvage the film, which is poor in every department, save for the cinematography, which is above average. The rest of the cast (comprising Mandira, Sharib, Raima Sen) is quite average enough and the attempt at humour through dialogues falls flat on its face.

As for the plot itself, it is quite evident that the makers decided to rip off the plot of ‘Shutter Island’ (an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane) for making this film (really sorry for the spoiler, guys). Had it just been that, it would have been easy to forgive the makers, but taking a crack suspense thriller and making a shoddy job at copying it is something that cannot be condoned.

If you have seen ‘Shutter Island’, you will wince and cringe as Vodka Diaries unfolds and believe me, the experience is not pleasant. The screenplay is weak, the dialogues are ineffective and the treatment is shabby... in short, there is not a single reason to watch this film.

Believe me, stick to Shutter Island if you haven’t seen it already...