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T-Series, Cape Of Good Films and Abundantia Entertainment’s Durgamati – The Myth is a horror film and more. Chanchal Chauhan (Bhumi Pednekar) is serving a jail term for the murder of her beloved, Shakti (Karan Kapadia). She is an IAS officer who has been minister Ishwar Prasad’s (Arshad Warsi) personal secretary for two terms. The ruling party wants to malign Ishwar Prasad who has a spotless reputation among the public. With no clue to tarnish his reputation, CBI officer Satakshi Ganguly (Mahie Gill) has Chanchal taken from the prison to the mansion of Queen Durgamati which is rumoured to be haunted by the Queen’s spirit. The idea is to interrogate and grill Chanchal till she spills the beans on Ishwar Prasad.
Once there, CBI officer Satakshi Ganguly, ACP Abhay Singh (Jishu Sengupta) and their teams are horrified to see Chanchal get possessed by Durgamati’s ghost. Pertinent to note that ACP Abhay Singh has an axe to grind with Chanchal because her lover, Shakti, whom she had killed, was Abhay’s younger brother. Does Satakshi get what she wants from Chanchal? Is Ishwar Prasad actually corrupt or clean? Does Durgamati’s spirit leave Chanchal? If so, how? If not, what happens to Chanchal? Do Chanchal and Ishwar Prasad meet again?
The film is a remake of Tamil-Telugu film Bhaagamathie. The story and screenplay have been penned by Ashok who is also the director. The story is predictable in the first half and moves at a slow pace. The screenplay in the pre-interval portion does not hold the audience’s attention much, after the initial reels. A couple of twists and turns post-interval are interesting but they are unable to negate the overall impact of an insipid story. The audience keeps wondering since when have politicians become so scrupulous that they would waste time in actually hunting for proofs before accusing co-politicians of corruption. Wouldn’t an easier route for them be to allege that he was involved in a couple of scams? The last couple of reels, after Chanchal is admitted to the mental asylum, are interesting, but again, the climax borrows so heavily from earlier films that it simply fails to create any impact. All in all, the story and screenplay are both weak and uninspiring. To expect the youngsters of today to believe in this kind of a drama is a bit too preposterous. Ravinder Randhawa’s dialogues are good at a couple of places but routine otherwise.
Bhumi Pednekar does well as Chanchal Chauhan. Her acting in the scenes in which she is possessed by Durgamati’s ghost is impactful. Even otherwise, she performs ably. Jishu Sengupta looks smart and delivers a fine performance as ACP Abhay Singh. Mahie Gill is good as CBI officer Satakshi Ganguly. Arshad Warsi does an able job as minister Ishwar Prasad but his character has not been well developed. Karan Kapadia makes his presence felt in the role of Shakti. Ananth Mahadevan is alright as the psychiatrist. Shubhanker Dixit does an average job as the tantrik. Amit Behl has his moments as Jose. Dhanraj (as policeman Nand Singh), Brij Bhushan Shukla (as policeman Gopi) and Tanya Abrol (as constable Peetal Devi) lend routine support. Paritosh Acharya (as the home minster), Sushil Tandon (as the chief minister), Sanjiv Chauhan (as CBI director Dhananjay), Sangeeta Shrivastava (as the chief secretary), Prabhat Raghunandan (as Ajay Yadav), baby Ada Singh (as Satakshi’s daughter), Hariom Tiwari (as the irrigation officer) and the others are ordinary.
Ashok’s direction is below the mark. He has not been able to handle the drama effectively enough to scare the viewers in the horror scenes or to involve them in the suspense drama. He lacks the eye for detailing as is obvious in the scene in which Chanchal’s ring falls to the ground and keeps rolling ahead, creating a ringing sound (of the kind created when a metallic object touches the floor). For, in the close-ups in the latter part of the same scene, the floor is shown to be carpeted. How can a ring create a ringing sound when it falls on a carpeted floor? Even otherwise, Ashok has not been able to make a thrilling drama which would send chiils down the audience’s spine. Music (Tanishk Bagchi, Naman Adhikari, Abhinav Sharma and Malini Awasthi) is good but neither of the two songs are of the popular variety. Lyrics (Tanishk Bagchi and Dipti Misra) are weighty. Joe Paul’s Sanskrit lyrics are pretty effective. Jakes Bejoy’s background music is nice. Kuldeep Mamania’s cinematography is very good. Action scenes have been effectively choreographed by Nishant Abdul Khan. Tariq Umar Khan’s production designing is of a fine standard. Unnikrishnan P.P.’s editing should’ve been far more sharp and crisp. The film could easily be condensed to two hours’ running time instead of the two-hour-thirty-four-minutes’ running time.
On the whole, Durgamati – The Myth is too tame, far-fetched and implausible a drama to make any impact. It will not find much appreciation. Had it been released in the cinemas, it would not have fared too well.
Released today (11-12-’20) on Amazon Prime Video.