Talaash: Say No to Cheese

Talaash is a great film made out of an absurd story and it is not necessarily a good thing to happen. The much-hyped twist at the end might live up to it in terms of its shock value to find its presence in  an Aamir Khan film but it is certainly out of place. It is surprising to see how everyone decided to play along when the bluff was so easy to call and to think that they have made one flawless film out of this insanity is difficult to chew.

It is a tempting thought to call Talaash a film-noir since it evocatively checks most of the boxes of the genre. But the generous amount of cheese its script is peppered with and the leisurely pace with which the plot unfolds bring down what could have been a decent tribute to the genre.

The film is consistently watchable thanks to the ensemble both on and off the screen. Kareena and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are the standout performers and the later in particular adds an altogether different and interesting perspective to the plot. Aamir plays the role of the cop with his usual earnestness but Surjan Shekhawat is not one of his memorable roles since the character is neither likeable nor layered enough to follow. He asks all the questions in the movie but forgets or conveniently ignores the most important one. The logic of the script. Rani is a natural and seems to be at home playing Roshni who does not resort to theatrics to make her point. Mohanan’s cinematography gives the film the desired moody feel and Ram Sampath’s background score manages to hook you to the proceedings. As we noted earlier, this is indeed a brilliant ‘film’ if one has to go by the true definition of cinema.

There is a scene in the film where Surjan Shekhawat contemplates what might have been his son’s fate had he chose to act differently on that fateful day. Perhaps the film’s current ending is one of those choices (the wrong one, even in the film) made by the writing team. Perhaps there was a better ending to the tale that was not shown to us which would have been more fitting. With a couple of smooches and tackier visuals, this one would well have been Raaz 4 or Jism 3.

To sum it up Talaash is Travis Bickle trapped in a film-noir only to be bailed out by the Bhatts.