Shah Rukh Khan, through his Red Chillies Entertainment has offered a new suspense filled murder mystery in the form of ‘Badla’ which is directed by ‘Kahani’ fame Sujoy Ghosh. The story of this film is inspired by Spanish film ‘Contratiempo’( The Invisible Guest ) directed by Oriol Paulo which was released in 2016. The film deals with a plot, when a murder takes place in a hotel room in England, for which a young married leading Indian origin businesswoman from England Naina Sethi ( Tapasi Pannu) is accused of murdering her boyfriend Arjun Joseph ( Tony Luke).
In the film, both Naina and Arjun are shown in an ex marital relationship with each other cheating their respective life partners. And therefore, the murder of Arjun in a hotel room in presence of Naina and she pleading not guilty, brings in a prestigious lawyer Badal Gupta ( Amitabh Bachchan) with the help of her trusted influential friend, to help her out. How he extracts the truth from her for the possibility of involvement of a third person into this murder mystery, is what the film is all about. But, the creative screenplay and direction of Sujoy Ghosh has made this plot more gripping and finally uncovering the mystery behind this murder.
There is no doubt about the wonderful performances of Amitabh Bachchan and Tapasi Pannu in their respective characters, but another superb performance also comes from veteran actress Amrita Singh who plays an equally important role in this film. And, it is her character which adds more interest at the stroke of interval. Good support comes from other character artistes. Actually, films like ‘Badla’ should be watched without a break to maintain the rhythm of interesting screenplay. Nevertheless, ‘Badla’ has successfully progressed in the post interval session retaining the curiosity among the viewers. It is for this reason, the film has created a strong impact of an interesting suspense thriller.
Excellent cinematography by Avik Mukhopadhyay, intelligent editing work by Monisha R. Baldawa with good support coming from suitable background music and brilliant sound recording are other plus points of this film. Certainly a worth watch for all those who love to watch suspense filled Crime based murder mysteries.
Rating ( ****)