REVIEW: ZINDAGI SHATRANJ HAI

Producers- Anand Prakash, Mrinalini Singh and Faheem Qureshi

Director-Dushyant Pratap Singh

Star Cast- Hiten Tejwani, Kavita Tripathi, Rajkumar Kanojia, Pankaj Berry, Ashutosh Kaushik, Ekta Jain, Shahwar Ali, Bruna Abdullah and Hemant Pandey

Genre- Suspense

Platform of Release- Theatres

Rating- **

Loud & Predictable!

Jyothi Venkatesh

The film centers on Natasha (Kavita Kashyap) who is driven to the brink of insanity when a man arrives at her lavish bungalow claiming to be her husband. Things take an unexpected turn when everyone, except for her, refers to the man (Hiten Tejwani) as Vishal Malhotra, her husband.

 Zindagi Shatranj Hai sets out to tell the tale of a deceitful visitor who poses as a spouse, causes a horrific incident, and then stays within the same apartment and shares the bewildered housewife’s bed too. Natasha’s nightmare begins as a result of no one believing her. Undoubtedly inspired or for that matter adapted from Michael Anderson’s Chase A Crooked Shadow which has already been made in Tamil as Puthiya Paravai in the 70’s, the story hinges on whether he is telling the truth or a liar and reveals a tale which is quirky to the core.

Though the narrative is to a large extent appealing, the flimsy screenplay jumps from one story to the next and disrupts the flow of events, especially since the mystery killer’s plot becomes entwined with the couple’s life and the transition between the tracks of an imposter husband and the hunt for the mystery killer is far from being smooth. The film is primarily shot in one luxurious bungalow, capturing every detail of the setting and also at the same time revealing the fact that the budget has been very low

As far as the performance of the cast is concerned, all that I can say is that Hiten Tejwani manages to save the murky rendering with some quality acting, though the director panders to the lowest common denominator by shifting the viewer’s attention to loud cops (played by Ashutosh Kaushik, Ekta Jain and Rajkumar Kanojiya), who are in fact investigating the case simultaneously.

Kavita Tripathi is just about passable and it can be rightly said that given that she and Hiten are the main characters; her performance is the weakest in the movie and she is not able to impress at all with her emoting in the overly dramatic crucial scenes. Vasu, the couple's housekeeper, is convincingly played by Hemant Pandey.

To sum up, it is a tacky thriller which is out and out predictable to the core.