Chehre Movie Review: Law-l!

ChehreUA Drama mysteryDir Rumi JafferyCast Amitabh Bachchan Emraan HashmiRating 155A sales representative whose car breaks down during a trip finds lodging for the night in a house of a retired judge The host invites him to participate in a game that the judge and his three friendsmdasha former prosecutor a defense attorney and a public hangmanmdashplay over dinner The game in question is a pretendtrial in which he the sales rep will be defendant During crossquestion it transpires that he may have caused death of his boss by heart attackhelliprdquoI could obviously carry on writingmdashplus revealing inadvertently spoilers after spoilersmdashover what reads like the story of this film Chehre Except Irsquove only quoted from the Wikipedia page word for word the plot summary thus farmdashof Friedrichrsquos Durrenmattrsquos novel A Dangeorous Game 1956Watch VideoOnly that the writing of Chehre in the opening credits is whollysolely attributed to Ranjit Kapoor Two lawyers and a judge albeit retired plus a kangaroo court are at the centre of this script Few minutes into the film though yoursquod think it was about imminent dangers of climate changeAlso Read Emraan Hashmi You are only as good as script and directorThe hero an ad man Emraan Hashmi is seen driving through thickly Arctic layers of snowmdashas mentioned in the movie only over 200 kilometres from Delhi The setting without polar bears is mysteriously described as a place where the weather periodically alternates between icy rains hail storm and scorching sun Which is where the herorsquos car must stop before a tree thatrsquos fallenWhat follows is a couple of hours of an indoor drama Chiefly starring three old men in a Siberian mansion where Hashmirsquos character spends a night of random interrogation A fairly transformed Annu Kapoor banging it with his SardarPunjabi twang is the former defense counselWhich also sort of reminded me of Kapoor from Basu Chatterjeersquos Ek Ruka Hua Faisla 1986mdashsimilarly a oneroom intensely talkie dramamdashshamelessly stolen without a word of acknowledgement from Sidney Lumetrsquos Twelve Angry Men 1956That in turn was based on a stage production Guess who was credited for writing Ek Ruka Hua Faisla besides Chatterjee himself Same as the writer of Chehre Ranjit KapoorThis is of course effectively a play The camera steps out of the solitary location only a couple of times Dhritiman Chatterjee is the judge Amitabh Bachchan plays the public prosecutor although billed for ldquospecial appearancerdquo in the filmAlso Read Rumy Jafry Dont think Chehre will benefit or suffer due to RheaPress reports suggest he didnrsquot charge a paisa for the part as well In terms of linesdialogue alone Bachchan has a role long enough to be leadmdashover everyone else in this faux courtroom drama anywayEspecially when you consider the soliloquy the filmmakers predictably save for him towards the end A frustratingly neverending monologue so unrelated to everything the film has been about thus far that while you still appreciate the effort thatrsquos gone into giving everything a larger purpose you realise the movie itself has no point to make at all If it wasnrsquot for Bachchan that problematic monologuemdashstrangely interpreting law and justice as a system that should have no place for reformation or pardonmdashwould have sounded like verbal diarrhoea from a tonedeaf dude To be fair Big B makes more interesting impromptu conversations on his quiz show KBCTo be fairer still the cast gives this screenplay the credibility it may not deserve Maybe the actors walked right into what they sensed was a clever script In a meta sort of way the only time I felt anything for a character it was a girl who plays the househelp in this movieEven for the few minutes she appears on screen Hashmirsquos character harasses her in lieu of seducing her apparently She has a deliberately imbecilic laugh Look closer yoursquoll recognise this actor as Rhea Chakrabortymdashsingularly known for the witchhunt and media trial against her that followed the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in 2020Mainstream press and social media handles played judge prosecutor and hangman in that case involving the death of her boyfriend The madness of this movie about a nonexistent case in a fake trial is nothing compared to what Chakraborty had to go through herselfI felt terrible for her of coursemdashmuch more than for those who have to sit through this movie in a proper theatre which is where itrsquos released A casual switch of the button on an OTT platform for lockdownlevel entertainment is about as far as Irsquod be willing to go with itAlso Read Rhea Chakraborty Take a minute and say thank you gratitude is powerful