MOVIE REVIEW: ABIR CLEARS THE BOARDS IN BADSHAHI ANGTI

Film: Badshahi Angti
Director: Sandip Ray
Cast: Abir Chatterjee, Sourav Das, Paran Bandopadhyay, Bharat Kaul, Dipankar De and others.

Rating: 

Popularity of Feluda has time and again being tested, obviously by the flag bearing works that are being carried out by the decedents of the famous Upendra Kishore Ray family. The brain-weaponry again is the soul of the film as is always for the whole Feluda series. The film is an autonomic – allusion glitter to the viewers that describes the popularity realization of the Bengalis to the fictional hero created by Manikda. Very neatly for the first time Ray (Not Satyajit) had carved out a visual flick which reboots the retro-Feluda flavor after the closure of Satyajit Ray warehouse. The same applies to Topshe as well. This is also the first story of Feluda so it doesn’t have any Jatayu. The director thus had a big liability over to counter the critics. The big question among the audiences of Siliguri is who is the best Byomkesh Abir or Feluda Abir!! Let’s discuss it later. In accordance to the novel the film Badshahi Angti, shows Feluda travelling to Lucknow with his uncle and his nephew. In Lucknow, Feluda gets a chance to solve a case of a mysterious ring which incidentally used to belong to Aurangzeb when Dr. Srivastav gives it to Dhiren for safekeeping. We should not be describing much but we won’t hesitate to say that the real test of this film is Abir fitting in the shoes of the iconic character and not exactly the story. Saurav Das (the guy playing the character of Topshe) looks innocent, which is in line with the previous versions. The same applies to Abir, the youngest looking Feluda who however is able to play his role with maturity and conviction. The cigarette in his hand, the winter shawl, the dangling white pajama and the intellectual looks are still on with Abir, who might have researched day and night to master those in this i-phone era. However, Feluda don’t have the cell phone either. The Feluda-Topshe chemistry is so so. Tour operators have termed Feluda series as the best travelogue stories in Bengali literature. Sandip Ray also had paid a respect to those thoughts. One can see Haridwar and specially Lucknow with all its prime places of interest along with the guide’s (Feluda’s) description. The only thing that was highly missing was the Lucknowi Biriyani of course. It might be because of Sandip Ray’s personal affection towards “Niramish” foods. All the character artistes are okay and Paran Banerjee who gets an extended role as Bonbihari is just good. Over all it can be said that the film might be just another Sandip Ray film for others but for Abir, it’s like the younger son of a typical middle class Bengali family clearing his board examinations with a first division (not exactly with star marks). I wonder how much we have to wait for other filmmakers, such as Dibakar Banerjee and Shoojit Sircar, who are keen to make Feluda because Sandip Ray isn’t in a mood to give the rights to others.

Reviewer: R. Subrata (TNI Siliguri)