Kahaani
| Kahaani | |
|---|---|
| File:Kahaani first look.jpg Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sujoy Ghosh |
| Screenplay by | Sujoy Ghosh Suresh Nair Nikhil Vyas |
| Story by | Sujoy Ghosh Advaita Kala |
| Produced by | Sujoy Ghosh Kushal Gada |
| Starring | Vidya Balan Parambrata Chatterjee Saswata Chatterjee |
| Cinematography | Setu |
| Edited by | Namrata Rao |
| Music by | Vishal-Shekhar |
| Distributed by | Pen India Pvt. Ltd Viacom 18 Motion Pictures Boundscript Motion Pictures Pvt. Ltd |
Release date |
|
| Country | Template:Film India |
| Language | Hindi |
| Budget | ₹8 crore (US$940,000) |
| Box office | ₹8.3 crore (US$970,000) (First 3 days net gross)[1] |
Kahaani is an Indian thriller film directed and co-produced by Sujoy Ghosh. It stars Vidya Balan and Parambrata Chatterjee in lead roles. Balan plays a pregnant woman in search of her husband and the father of the child. The film is Vidya's fourth female-centric film after Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica & The Dirty Picture.[2]
The film released on 9 March 2012 and was well received by critics.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).[3][4]
Plot (SPOILER ALERT)
The story begins with Vidya Bagchi(Vidya Balan), a pretty, intelligent, urbane woman, seven months pregnant, in an emotionally fragile state, but with extreme reserves of determination and resolve, arriving in Kolkata from London, looking for her missing husband. On the very 1st day of reaching to Kolkata,the first thing she does is to go to a police station to lodge a complaint about her missing husband Arnab Bagchi. Arnab had come to Kolkata on a software consultancy project with the National Data Centre (NDC). According to Vidya, the first two weeks of his visit, went by smoothly, with Arnab and Vidya chatting daily. Suddenly, one day...all communication with Arnab ceased and he went untraceable.
A sympathetic policeman, Satyaki Sinha/Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee) assists Vidya in her search, as Kolkata prepares herself for its biggest festival, Durga Puja. Vidya and Rana go to the hotel where Arnab had stayed and is shocked to see that the hotel is actually a very down market guesthouse. The manager insists that no Arnab Bagchi ever stayed with them. Vidya chooses to stay in the guesthouse. Next morning Vidya goes to the NDC but the HR manager, Agnes, tells her the same thing in person as she said on the phone to Vidya in London. Agnes had not sanctioned any assignment for any Arnab Bagchi, and neither did he arrive in Kolkata. The police are slightly baffled that both the NDC and the hotel where Arnab was staying, claim that no one named Arnab ever arrived! But Vidya of course says that she knows he had come to Kolkata. Rana also finds out that both London and Kolkata immigration have no records of anyone by the name of Arnab Bagchi leaving London or arriving in Kolkata.
A day later, Agnes from NDC calls Vidya and tells her that an NDC ex-employee by the name Milan Damji closely resembles her husband (from a photo Vidya showed Agnes when she met her). Agnes tries to extract Milan's records from the HR systems, but is denied access to Milan's record. The same night, an assassin posing as an insurance salesman shoots her dead at her home.
Rana and Vidya follow this lead and break into the old offices of NDC to check for old records of Milan Damji. Vidya says she is convinced that her husband, who apparently bears a likeness to this Damji, has fallen into trouble as the wrong man in the wrong place. She convinces Rana that finding Damji will mean getting a direct lead to her husband.
Meanwhile, Agnes trying to access Milan Damji's files rattles two high ranking IB officials - the chief Bhaskaran (Dhritiman Chatterjee) and his expletive spewing deputy Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Khan is sent to Kolkata, and we learn that Damji was a an IB agent gone rogue, who was responsible for scores of deaths a couple of years ago in a poison gas attack in the Kolkata Metro. The IB has been looking for him ever since.
Khan and Rana decide to use Vidya as their front woman to track down Milan Damji , as they feel her search for her husband is a good cover for hiding the true nature behind their own manhunt. Together, they manage to uncover that there is a second rogue agent in the IB who has been aiding Milan all these years, and is probably being paid off by the enemy. They also find that the NDC seems to be a regular cover for folks who are secret agents in Kolkata. Suspicion then moves to the NDC CTO, one Sridhar, when Rana and Vidya find that his computer was being used to send out anonymous MMS instructions to the assassin killing anyone who has any record of Damji. It turns out that Sridhar also gave the order to kill Agnes, the NDC HR Manager, and his latest instruction has been to finish Vidya.
Vidya helps the police corner Sridhar, by hacking into his computer (she is after all a qualified software professional with knowledge of systems), and helps the IB and police find out that Bhaskaran is the other rogue agent in the system aiding Milan.
The police try to corner Bhaskaran, who, realizing his predicament sends Damji after Vidya to retrieve the data she has retrieved from Sridhar's computer. Milan tells Vidya that in return for this information, he will give her husband back to her. Vidya agrees to meet him on the final day of Durga Puja at an immersion ceremony.
Here Milan reveals himself and asks for the incriminating files of himself and Bhaskaran. She refuses, and he kicks her in the stomach. At this point it is revealed that Vidya has been wearing a body suit and is not pregnant. She shocks Milan by overpowering him in a few moves and then killing him. She then disappears into the thick crowds in the streets, while the police who arrive later find only Milan Damji's body in an alley.
We then find out that Vidya is actually an IB agent herself, whose husband dies 2 years back in the Kolkata Metro poison gas attack, which was carried out by Damji. The ex chief of the IB has trained her for this mission so that she could find Damji, as well as the rogue elements in the Bureau who were aiding him. In this, she succeeds beautifully by posing as a pregnant woman searching for her husband, and uses the resources of the IB and Kolkata Police to find out about and trace Damji. While Inspector Khan and Rana felt they were using her as a front, it was actually the other way round. Vidya (which we now find was not her real name), before disappearing, leaves a note to Rana, thanking him for his help.
Cast
- Vidya Balan as Vidya ( also called Bidya ) Venkatesan Bagchi / Mrs. Arup Basu
- Parambrata Chatterjee as Satyaki Sinha/Rana
- Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Khan, IB Officer
- Saswata Chatterjee as Bob Biswas
- Indraneil Sengupta as Milan Damji
- Abir Chatterjee as Arup Basu (Guest Appearance)
- Dhritiman Chatterjee as IB Chief (Guest Appearance)
- Darshan Jariwala as ex IB Chief (Guest Appearance)
Reception
Critical reception
Upon release, the film received highly positive reviews from critics. According to review aggregator ReviewGang this movie received 8 out of 10 rating by professional critics. [5] Taran Adarsh of Bollywwod Hungama gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote " THE DIRTY PICTURE, the admiration for the National Award winning actress Vidya has scaled woozy altitudes and let me affirm, the supremely talented actress delivers a performance that's at par with her former accomplishments." [6] Madhureeta Mukherjee of Times Of India gave 4 out of 5 stars and said "Once again, a 'pregnant' Vidya, ironically displays more 'male ornaments' (excuse the watering down) than most heroes." [7] Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave 4 out of 5 stars and said "Vidya Balan excels in Kahaani, a film which is much too enjoyable to find flaws." [8] Rajeev Masand of IBN Live gave 3.5 out of five stars saying "it's a delicious thriller". Aakash Barvalia of Moviez Adda gave 4 out of 5 stars and said "It’s a story of one brave and courageous pregnant woman, Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan), who came all the way long from London to Kolkata (India), to find her missing husband Arnab Bagchi.[8]"
Box office
Kahaani had an average opening at the box office collecting ₹2.60 crore (US$300,000). The bulk of the business came from Mumbai, Delhi/UP, East Punjab West Bengal and Mysore with these five circuits giving a contribution of over 80%.[9][10]
Soundtrack
The music of the film was composed by Vishal-Shekhar The soundtrack of the film was released on February 22, 2012.
| No. | Title | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Aami Shotti Bolchi" | Usha Uthup, Shekhar Ravjiani | 03:20 |
| 2. | "Piya Tu Kahein Rutha Re" | Javed Bashir | 04:59 |
| 3. | "Kahaani (Male)" | KK, Vishal Dadlani | 04:26 |
| 4. | "Tore Bina" | Sukhwinder Singh | 05:52 |
| 5. | "Kahaani (Female)" | Shreya Ghoshal, Vishal Dadlani | 04:28 |
| 6. | "Ekla Cholo Re" | Amitabh Bachchan | 05:13 |
| Untitled | |
|---|---|
References
- ^ "First Day Collection". boxofficeindia. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
- ^ "A clean break for Vidya Balan". India Today. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
- ^ "FIRST LOOK: Vidya Balan in Kahaani". Hindustan Times. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
- ^ "No Ordinary Kahaani".
- ^ "Kahani Review". Review Aggregation. Review Gang. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ Adarsh, Taran. "Kahani". Review by taran adarsh. Bollywood Hungama. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
- ^ "Kahaani Review". Times Of India. 8 March 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
- ^ a b Sukanya Verma. "Review: Vidya Balan rocks in Kahaani". Rediff.com. Retrieved 09 March 2012.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) Cite error: The named reference "Kahaani Review" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "Weekend Expectation". boxofficeindia. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
- ^ "Kahaani to overtake Chaar Din Ki Chandni". boxofficeindia. Retrieved March 10, 2012.