Review of Talaash (2012) by Jack L — 27 Dec 2012

Talaash (Hindi).

Aamir Khan - The name stands for nothing less than perfection and ardor in Bollywood. It's been three years since the man has seen a major release and is never in a rush when it comes to choosing his films. At the same time he's one of the few Indian actors adept at "breaking mold" with each of his outing (more or less).

Plot:

Superstar Armaan Kapoor (Vivan Bhatena) is killed in a suspicious road accident and inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat aka Suri (Aamir khan) steps in to investigate the case. He accidentally meets a sex worker Rosie (Kareena Kapoor) who keeps helping him off and on with a mysterious presence woven around her.

On the other hand Suri (AAMIR KHAN) is battling against his personal demons at the cost of his marital relationship with Roshni (Rani Mukherjee). Rest of the story is about Suri learning a harsh reality from Rosie and setting things right in a rather unconventional manner.

Analysis:

The film exactly delivers what it's supposed to. There is no absolute waste of screen time in setting the plot and making relevant characters run along with it. At the same time, the film has no characters or scenes that are out of place or unnecessary. It's a typical genre based film that runs on taut plot and screenplay instead of deviating in the name of entertainment and commercialism.

The film is a singular output coming out from the likes of Zoya Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap - A first look at the credits must be like "too many cooks" but yes these cooks come together to cook a perfect story, screenplay and dialogue element with high potency.

Performances:

Aamir Khan as Inspector Shekhawat aka Suri is pure concentration and perfection in delivering a character. He changes his physique and look (quite common to him) as per character's demand and breathes life in to it. As a law protector getting squished between professional duty, personal tragedy and almost tattered marital life he comes out squeaky clean with no patches.

Rani Mukerji as Suri's wife has not a lot to deliver based on her character dimensions - she supposed to be dark and morose with a lot of glycerin. Kareena Kapoor as a flashy call girl offers the slick factor and also gets to play the central character in a near twisty plot. All the other characters are adequate as per their scope limits.

Director Reema Kagti must be commended for coming up with a novel story line and screenplay along with Zoya Akhtar. Dialogues by Farhan Akhtar and Vishal Bharadwaj are crisp, natural and deliver expected punch to the film. Surprise package is music by Ram Sampath - though the film has no scope for dance songs etc he excels in coming up with exquisite background score for the entire film.