Staying Chup Or Not?
Starring: Dulquer Salmaan, Sunny Deol, Pooja Bhatt and Shreya Dhanwanthary
Director: R. Balki
Producers: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Anil Naidu, Dr. Jayantilal Gada (Pen Studios) & Gauri Shinde
Music Director: S.D. Burman, Amit Trivedi, Sneha Khanwalkar, and Aman Pant
I fear for my life when I write this review. Or should I not?
Well, if I was one of the film critics featured in Chup, I wouldn’t know. I might just be a target. And I could be slaughtered in the way I use my words in the review. So, R Balki, Rishi Virmani and Raja Sen, be with me.
Guru Dutt is one of my favourite film makers. For being a visionary and being born in a world that understood him on hindsight. He was futuristic back then and the world was still to catch up to his sensibilities.
The film’s protagonist, the twisted Danny, played by the superbly talented Dulquer Salmaan, idolises Guru Dutt and eerily mixes up his hero’s onscreen/offscreen pathos justifying his own life and its murderous choices. Each gory murder of a film critic is an episode in blood, gore, dark creativity and horror. If one of the victims is slashed neatly in his own washroom, the other is strewn apart in a cricket field and another scattered under a moving train. Not for those with delicate sensibilities because like you’d pause the gory scenes on OTT, this one on the big screen has to be endured through. Anyway, web serials have immunized us to watch blood, gore and dismembered body parts, so we are safe there.
That Danny is a florist, softens the blood and the gore of the narrative. The flower store, the tulips, the softness of it all and his budding romance with Nila, played by Dubai girl Shreya Dhanwantary are momentary respites from the simmering crime in its underbelly. Like the Bharatiraja film Sigappu Rojakkal ( later remade in Hindi as Red Rose) where the gory crime is buried above red roses, the protagonist’s character is juxtaposed between his poetic sensibility as a florist and romantic and a psychopathic killer.
The two cups of tea Danny has, be it in his beautiful garden or in the Iranian chai shop, defines the two murmurs in his head of two distinctly different personalities, a psychopathic killer and a lover living in one body. Needless to say that the murderous one subdues the lover all the time.
Right from the beginning, the audience knows who the killer is. Thanks to the way, trailers are cut these days, instead of being intriguing, they end up summarizing the film. So, now we are only waiting to see when he’ll get caught, die or flee the country looking for fresher victims. And one of this happens in the end. Also childhood trauma, one of the commonest causes of errant behavior makes an appearance justifying the delinquency.
Despite its problems, DQ holds the film together with his focus on the two characters he plays out. Shreya fulfills her role as a journalist and horror stricken lover. Sunny Deol as a sinewed cop suits his character and I wish that Pooja Bhatt’s small but effective role was longer. The refreshing part of the film is actor Saranya who is depicted blind but feisty.
What struck me was the film critics are deemed so important to be targeted and killed in this way. It is flattering and in some eerie way, the film awards a lot of importance to them. From a film-maker’s point of view, do you still think that a film critic can still make or break a film ? What about paid reviewers, unqualified reviewers, influencers and really anyone with good insta following giving the film a verdict. Do we take film reviews seriously anymore? Aren’t we living in a world where most people with a large social media following think, he or she is a film critic? Or a food or a make-up expert? In that space, do you stay Chup or not, is the question.
