Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar Hindi Movie Review

            Dibakar Banerjee is up to something that goes completely off target. Spirited Parineeti and the awkward Arjun keep paddling the rough course from the urban stylised racy start to a baraat in the Hills in the finale – all with great concern and no purpose. No character in this script has enough flesh or sense. They are also as well sketched as those appearing in a comic strip – only there is not humour either.

            The narrative has a jerky start with suspended cop Pinky (Arjun Kapoor) on a kidnap and kill mission with target Sandeep (Parineeti). It obviously is designed to go wrong. Thus begins another version of: It Happened One Night or our Chori Chori, Baat Ek Raat Ki, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin. While all those tails have a light hearted premise and survive on superlative music scores, this time it rallies around (and fails miserably) around revenge, scandal, hate and the like – flavours of New World Entertainment paradigm.

            From the blur of the narrative you come to realise that Sandeep’s boss in the private bank was has hired people to have her killed. She is also carrying his child in the womb. The ‘Faraar’ couple Sandeep and Pinky are at each other’s throat literally and figuratively. The plan now changes to Sandeep wanting to escape to Nepal and willing to pay Pinky to aid her runaway. On the way, they run into an aged couple Raghubeer Yadav and Neena Gupta who extend their home in the hills as a temporary lodge. Parineeti realises that the warm couple are victims to a bank scam she is author to. She tries to save them at the cost of leaving a trail. Even the Branch Manager who knows that she is way up the hierarchy, acts fresh with her and Pinky and Sandeep have to feign as being a married couple to gain accommodation with the old couple.

            Suddenly this – ‘Suhana Safar’ like take turns into a seeming crime thriller with the police on the chase and Sandeep trying to escape. In the midst of all this we have some lessons in mid-wifery when Sandeep has a miscarriage.

            Multiple layers clash chaotically, and the complete awry narrative does the film no good. The Ishaqzade pair that created brilliant chemistry on screen look uninterested. This is not to say they do not try. Parineeti with her trademark energy tries hard. The script does not oblige. Arjun uses his gawky awkward presence to his advantage but soon resembles something that the cat left behind. As the middle-aged couple, Yadav and Neena Gupta are a class act. These four guys give their everything to a script that deserves summary dumping.

            Along with Sandeep and Pinky, the audience must indulge in ‘Faraar’. Run away is the message. Take it or suffer it!!

L. Ravichander.