BLACKMAIL FILM REVIEW: IRRFAN KHAN'S DARK COMEDY HAS AN INTERESTING PLOT WITH SOME FLAWS!

Delhi Belly director Abhinay Deo came up with another black comedy which is again a film with some toilet jokes, and witty humour used at some places. The film has an interesting plot, good actors but loose writing.

Blackmail is a story of a middle-class man, Dev played by Irrfan Khan working in toilet paper company. Dev is a married man who tries to spend much of his time in office and also the last person to leave the office every day.  Dev is a bored, unhappy and frustrated man who alone plays the video game after office hours and who steals pictures of his colleagues'  wives from their work desks and masturbates to them in the office toilet. His wife Reena (Kriti Kulhari) also cheating on her husband with her ex-boyfriend and also married Ranjit Arora (Arunoday Singh). Clearly, Dev and Reena stuck in an unhappy and loveless marriage and both of them find their ways to satisfy their needs. But one day taking some advice from one of his colleagues  Anand Tripathi (Pradhuman Singh), Dev try to give a surprise to his wife and instead get the shock after seeing his wife with another man in the bed. Now, the whole blackmailing thing and badla drama begin.

First of all, talking about the acting, the makers smartly choose their actors for the different roles, especially Irrfan Khan who effortlessly plays the role of a sad, frustrated, mean plus wicked character of Dev who instead of confronting his wife about the affair choose to blackmail Ranjit for paying his EMIs and bills. But life is not that simple and Dev is trapped in his own blackmailing plan. Other characters such as American return clueless boss ( Omi Vaidya), Ranjit Arora's rich and alcoholic wife Dolly (Divya Dutta), Chawla couple ( Gajraj Rao and Vibha Chibber) perfectly play their parts. But I wish makers give some more to Pink actress Kriti Kulkarni because she has not much to do in the film. The characters of Dolly's parents are unnecessary and forced.

A conversation between Anand and Dev-  A:- Wahi. Apne bar le jaunga, ek Coke ke saath do large vodka mix kar ke pilaaunga aur fir...Dev replied:-  Isko rape kehte hain; Mein ladki dekh kr bta deta hu woh virgin hai ya nhi, woh ladki badi fast h, merese bhi jayda daaru peeti hai. These type of dialogues used in the film shows mindset of some men who don't care about girls'  consent thought  There are some other very quirky and witty dialogues used in the film resemblance to the ts situation, "Shadi gaon me hoti hai, shehar me toh band bajta hai" and Kyu Dev Ki Life ki leh rhe ho. Omi Vaidya also has some funny dialogues which revolve around toilet , Jis Desh me peene k liye paani nahi, waha dhone k liye paani kaha se aata hai. But then I realised it is about the touch... of hands. So we have made our product super soft, "Jet spray, typical middle-class invention... it’s disgusting! Aim hi karte raho.” “The Third World War will be fought for water and the only thing that will save it is toilet paper.”

But apart from some dialogues and acting, the interesting plot lost all its direction and stretched too much to 2 hours 39 min long. There are too much of blackmailing and unnecessary twists added to the story which makes the pace of the story very slow and boring. At one point only lead characters' acting holds you and give the strength to tolerate the full movie.

Lastly, I like the music of the film. Songs like Happy Happy and Patola are good. Amit Trivedi pairs up with rapper DIVINE  for song Badla an out and out situational number which perfectly suits with the story of the film. It is good to see Urmila Matondkar after a very long time on big screen in one of the item song  Bewafa Beauty. 

Overall if you like dark comedy and also a fan of Irrfan Khan's acting then Blackmail is a one time watch for me.