T-Series and RDP Motion Pictures’ Blackmail (UA), as the title suggests, is a film about blackmailing.
Dev Kaushal (Irrfan Khan) lives with his wife, Reena (Kirti Kulhari), and works in DK’s (Omi Vaidya) company which manufactures toilet paper rolls. Invariably, Dev sits till late in the office, playing video games if there’s no work. He always informs his wife, via a message on the mobile phone, before leaving the office for home. However, one day, Dev reaches home much ahead of his usual time, that too, without sending Reena a text message. He is shocked to find wife Reena in bed with another man (Arunoday Singh).
Dev finds out that his wife’s lover is Ranjit Arora who is the husband of Dolly Verma (Divya Dutta). Rather than confront Ranjit Arora or Reena, Dev starts blackmailing Ranjit. He buys a new cell phone and sends Ranjit a text message, demanding extortion money, threatening to spill the beans of his extra-marital affair before his wife, Dolly Verma. Dev does this as he is in need of money to meet his monthly expenses. Ranjit has no option but to oblige. And this demand for extortion money continues.
Soon, Reena also gets a similar blackmail message. She has no option but to take money from husband Dev to pay the blackmailer. Of course, she lies to Dev that she needs the money for the medical tests and surgery of her ailing father. After the first payment, the blackmailer’s extortion messages continue.
In a weaker moment, Dev confides in his colleague, Anand Tripathi (Pradhuman Singh Mall), and tells him how he had been blackmailing his wife’s paramour. In a drunken state, Anand tells colleague Prabha (Anuja Sathe) on a date, how her boss, Dev Kaushal, was blackmailing his own wife’s lover. Cunning and opportunistic as she is, Prabha now starts blackmailing Dev, threatening to spill the beans about his blackmailing tactics to his wife, Reena.
A stage comes when Ranjit Arora hires the services of a private detective, Chawla (Gajraj Rao), to pin down his blackmailer. The blackmailing drama also soon becomes a police case as it gets very complicated.
What happens thereafter? How does the blackmail drama stop?
Parveez Shaikh has written an intelligent story about deceit and blackmail. Since it moves at a fairly fast pace and many things are not underlined or explained in great detail, the audiences have to be alert always, so as to not miss any twist or turn. His screenplay is also intelligent but this makes the drama extremely class-appealing rather than universally appealing. In a way, the story of a man blackmailing the lover of his own wife rather than confronting him and her, also sounds weird and rather implausible. No doubt, it’s a comedy (dark, if one might add) but one is talking about the relationship between a husband and a wife – and that’s not something to be taken lightly. Perhaps, the best part of the story and screenplay is that it is written very differently and a lot of the humour is subtle and it unfolds in layers. Pradhuman Singh Mall’s dialogues are engaging and entertaining.
Irrfan Khan acts with effortless ease and shines in the role of Dev Kaushal. He slips into the skin of the character and delivers a wonderful performance, never once going overboard. But he doesn’t bowl the audience over as he usually does. Kirti Kulhari gets much lesser scope but she does justice to her role as Reena Kaushal. Divya Dutta is brilliant in the role of Dolly Verma. Her acting is extraordinary and her sense of timing, perfect. Arunoday Singh leaves a very good mark as Ranjit Arora, making his character quite interesting. Omi Vaidya’s comedy is fairly entertaining; his performance is nice. Gajraj Rao lends wonderful support as private detective Chawla. Pradhuman Singh Mall makes his mark with a good performance in the role of Dev’s colleague, Anand Tripathi. Anuja Sathe is first-rate as Dev Kaushal’s junior, Prabha. Abhijeet Chavan shines as police inspector Rawle. Pravina Deshpande lends terrific support as Reena Kaushal’s mother. Vibha Chhibber has her moments as the blind woman who deals in guns. Nav Ratan Singh Rathore and Neelima Azim (as Dolly Verma’s parents) are adequate. Urmila Matondkar adds oomph in a sexy song-dance number. Rajesh Khatri (as Reena’s ailing father), Anjali Ujawane (as Prabha’s mother), Manohar Teli (as Prabha’s father), Sharad Jadhav and Mayur Kachave (both as police constables), Ankush Deshmukh (as the guy in DK’s office), Suresh Yadav (as the security guard in DK’s office), Amit Kumar (as the watchman), and the others provide decent support.
Abhinay Deo’s direction is evolved and intelligent. Although he has made a film with restricted appeal, he has catered to the target (class) audience well enough. Music (Amit Trivedi, Baadshah, Guru Randhawa) is a mixed bag. While no song is a hit, ‘Patola’ (by Guru Randhawa) is appealing and ‘Happy happy’ (by Baadshah) is fair. Lyrics (Amitabh Bhattacharya, Baadshah, Guru Randhawa, Divine and Dhaval Parab) are quite nice. Song picturisations (‘Happy happy’, ‘Patola’ and ‘Badla’ by Vijay Ganguly; ‘Bewafa beauty’ by Rajit Dev) are alright. Background music (by Mikey McCleary and Parth Parekh) is decent. Jay Oza’s camerawork is reasonably nice. Harpal Singh’s action scenes are okay. Pravin Kadam’s art direction and Mustufa Stationwala’s production designing are of a good standard. Huzefa Lokhandwala’s editing is sharp.
On the whole, Blackmail is an intelligent and well-made film for the class audiences only but it will not be able to do much at the box-office because of low promotion and its implausible story.