It’s an interesting plot.
One murder. Two suspects.
But in the dock are two identical twins with similar DNA. Who’s the perp out of the two?
What could’ve been a racy thriller is tiresome most of the way. Director Vardhan Ketkar and writer Aseem Arora don’t do justice to Thadam, the Tamizh original by Magizh Tirumeni (remade as Red in Telugu) with bland filmmaking and dialogues that have no punch. What do you expect when a sidekick buddy is called Chaddi (Deepak Kalra) and most of the humour revolves around the undergarment? What do you also expect when there are outdated reasons like ACP Yadav (Ronit Roy) being too bigoted to accept a son-in-law from another caste? Or the overdone and omnipresent standoff between a senior police officer and the investigating officer? Or a lax policeman who’s eternally on the phone? Are refreshingly new characters and situations so difficult to create?
Twins Arjun and Ronnie (Aditya Roy Kapur and Aditya Roy Kapur) brawl, hate each other and point fingers at each other for the murder. The cops are baffled.
For no apparent reason, right from the beginning, ACP Yadav sneers at Shivani Mathur (Mrunal Thakur) who has been sent by the Commissioner to crack the case. That Yadav has his own reasons for wanting to pin the murder on one particular twin comes later. Predictably, Mathur has a different view and is sure it’s the other twin who’s the murderer. While these make good standoff points on paper, they don’t, alas, translate into a thrilling watch.
Considering two high-ranking officers are working on it with their teams, the investigation is glaringly shoddy. To cite just one example: the basic rule in any murder case would be to probe the personal life of the victim and the suspects. Arjun’s girlfriend is not a secret, he’s been openly in the relationship that began with a coffee/tea date, and his colleague at work knew all about it. But there’s not even an attempt to dig into the personal lives of the victim and the two suspects which is strange policework. But with Yadav and Mathur keener on playing a one-upmanship game than on going after every available clue, the impotent outcome is hardly surprising.
With songs that leave no impact and fight scenes that don’t give a high, the inherent intrigue in the plot is the sole saviour.
Aditya Roy Kapur has a pleasant personality but cannot carry off such a potent double role with his inconsistent dialogue delivery and voice quality. Mrunal Thakur is stiff and starchy, delivering stern dialogues with rehearsed effort. Ronit Roy is efficient as always, especially when he’s got a wicked streak. But we’ve seen better from Ronit in the past. The blame for the tepid performances should go to the director for not getting the best out of his actors.
Unfortunately, a plot full of possibilities is lost in unexciting storytelling and weak casting.
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