Wizfilms, KVN, HT Content Studio, First Step Movies and Opus Communications’ Kadak Singh is a psychological thriller.
A.K. Srivastava (Pankaj Tripathi) is a widower who lives with his daughter, Sakshi (Sanjana Sanghi), and son, Aditya (Varun Buddhadev). His wife, Mimi (Khushboo Kamal), was killed in an accident in the kitchen, for which he somewhere holds Aditya responsible. Because of his strict nature, his kids refer to him as Kadak Singh. Srivastava works in the Department of Financial Crimes (DFC) which is currently investigating a multi-crore chit fund scam.
One day, A.K. Srivastava has a showdown on the street in full public view, with daughter Sakshi. He is soon thereafter admitted to a hospital in a case of failed attempt to suicide. As bad luck would have it, he has a memory lapse after the failed suicide attempt. He remembers some things but is clueless about a lot of other things. Sakshi tries to convince him that she’s his daughter. His trusted assistant in office, Arjun (Paresh Pahuja), can’t believe that Srivastava was corrupt and attempted suicide because of the fear of being caught red-handed. Srivastava’s boss, Tyagi (Dilip Shankar), and colleague, Subhash (Rajan Modi), have their own versions about the suicide attempt. However, Sakshi is convinced, her dad would never attempt to end his life.
What is the truth about A.K. Srivastava’s attempted suicide?
Viraf Sarkari, Aniruddha Roychowdhury and Ritesh Shah have written a story which is not half as engaging as it ought to have been. The biggest problem with the story is that the issue of trying to help a patient with memory lapse is so shabbily written that it looks like a joke rather than a serious matter. The patient himself jokes while he is passing through the trauma, but those jokes don’t entertain the viewers if only because they appear to be irritating rather than funny. Ritesh Shah’s screenplay is weak in all respects and so are his characterisatoins. A.K. Srivastava hardly looks like a patient going through mental trauma due to memory lapse. Sakshi seems to be more bothered about her strained relationship with her father than about what’s most important at that point of time – his recovery. Srivastava’s nurse, Miss Kanan (Parvathi Thiruvothu), looks like she is least interested in the patient’s recovery or mental stress which so much of bombardment of information from various people (Sakshi, Arjun, Tyagi and Srivastava’s female friend, Naina) could lead to. The drama is also slow-paced and so long-winding that it fails to sustain the audience’s interest for long. Consequently, the viewers don’t feel exhilarated when the suspense is revealed. Ritesh Shah’s dialogues are ordinary.
Pankaj Tripathi does well as A.K. Srivastava but his weak characterisation (cracking jokes while going through mental trauma) reduces the impact of his performance. Sanjana Sanghi is okay as Sakshi. Jaya Ahsan is quite good in the role of Naina. Paresh Pahuja is earnest as Arjun. Parvathy Thiruvothu is unimpressive as nurse Kanan. Dilip Shankar lends fair support as Tyagi. Jogi Mallang is natural in the role of Jayaraj. Rajan Modi is quite impressive as Subhash. Varun Buddhadev leaves a fine mark as Aditya. Anindya Sengupta (as Vikram), Gulshanara Khatun (as Geeta Biswas), Ashoke Singh (as Ravikant Verma), Yogesh Bharadwaj (as Saquib Khan), Khushboo Kamal (as Mimi), Vaishnavi Prajapati (as young Sakshi), Shivansh Ramani (as young Aditya), Sanjeev Sharma (as Ashok Agarwal) and the others lend average support.
Aniruddha Roychowdhury’s direction is not good enough for the thriller which the film is. Shantanu Moitra’s music and background score are so-so. Lyrics (Tanveer Ghazi) are okay. Avik Mukhopadhyay’s cinematography is very good. Manohar Verma’s action and stunts are quite nice. Natasha Gauba’s production designing and Amit Kumar Dutta’s art direction are proper. Arghyakamal Mitra’s editing needed to be far more sharp.
On the whole, Kadak Singh doesn’t quite thrill and, therefore, will not be able to enthrall the audience even on OTT.
Released on 8-12-’23 on Zee5.