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Critic Review
Blackmail (2018)BLACKMAIL is the story of a bored and in-debt husband who devises a bizarre idea when he finds out that his wife is having an extra marital affair. Dev Kaushal (Irrfan Khan) works for Boss DK (Omi Vaidya) at My Handy, a toilet paper company. He is married to Reena (Kirti Kulhari) and their marriage has lost the spark. He prefers being in the office till late and playing games on the computer rather than going home early and spending time with his wife. Dev’s colleague Anand Tripathi (Pradhuman Singh Mall) advises him to go home early one day, buy flowers and surprise his wife. Dev likes this idea and goes home early only to find Reena sleeping with her ex-boyfriend Ranjit Arora (Arunoday Singh). On the other hand, Dev isn’t going to get a pay raise from DK and he has mounting debts. Hence, he buys a prepaid SIM card and blackmails Ranjit anonymously. Dev asks him to pay Rs. 1 lakh or else he’ll tell the truth to Dev! Ranjit is married to Dolly Verma (Divya Dutta) who suspects that Dev is cheating on her. Ranjit is broke and he asks for the blackmail amount under the pretext of starting a new business. Dolly hands him the said amount and he in turns hands it to Dev. Dolly’s father (Nav Ratan Singh Rathore) then asks Ranjit to return the Rs. 1 lakh that he took from Dolly and threatens him with dire consequences. With no other option in hand, Ranjit creates an anonymous email account and blackmails Reena into giving Rs. 1.20 lakh! He uses the same kind of words used by Dev in the blackmail message so that Reena would assume that it’s the same blackmailer. Reena has only Rs. 30,000 as savings and desperate to arrange the balance amount, she asks none other than Dev for Rs. 90,000! Dev agrees to give her the money but also realizes that he’ll be in debt again! So he asks for more money from Ranjit! As a result, Ranjit takes the Rs. 1.20 lakh from Reena, takes Rs. 20000 for himself and gives away the remaining amount to Dev! While this merry go around is going on, Dev confesses about blackmailing his wife’s lover to Anand. Anand in turn blurts out about it to Prabha (Anuja Anil Sathe), who has joined My Handy recently and whom Anand crushes on. Now Prabha starts blackmailing Dev for money and threatens that she’ll tell the truth to Reena if he doesn’t pay her up. What happens next forms the rest of the film..
Blackmail is dark, it’s entertaining and never for a second it has a dull moment. Hope it joins the list of this year’s well-earning movies like Padmaavat, Raid, Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, PadMan & Baaghi 2. Irrfan Khan, we already miss you – please ge.
Watching Blackmail is like riding a roller-coaster – you don’t know as to what will happen next but the mere thrill of it is enough to make you hop on. With so much amusement, it is no wonder that you don’t want the ride to end. It would be criminal.
Dev’s game of pac-man, on his computer screen and off it, is strangely fun, but one that demands your patience, especially when the second half turns a tad overambitious and unfortunately chaotic..
You want to feel more for this character. I ended up feeling more for the actor Irrfan, on the other hand. As we speak, he is undergoing treatment for a serious health issue. If anything, this movie tells us, he needs to get better soon, and come back wit.
Blackmail's settings are grim, dark, comic and capricious, but one misses the directorial chutzpah that Deo showcased in his 2011 film Delhi Belly.
But these are just silly pinpricks one must find out in a film that never runs short of bite and sting..
Feckless men on the back foot, wily and strong-willed women with transgressive tricks up their sleeves and a set of nondescript lives hurtling towards hell in an irreversible tailspin: Blackmail has them all. Sadly, in the end, they do not add up neatly e.
The one man who keeps us watching, regardless, is Irrfan, who plays a jerk-off artist and blackmailer as essentially a decent guy making the best of a bad job. He is one actor who can, with subtle shifts, reveal an interior life; he can show without telli.
In a nutshell, Irrfan Khan's Blackmail is a roller-coaster with its own set of ups and downs. A song in the film goes like 'Bewafa Beauty, Haaye, Ishq Mein Cheating Kar Gayi! But director Abhinay Deo stays true to his words and delivers a film that's high.
