vikrant massey Darkness. (Etiquette: vikrantmass,
When filmmaking is reduced to a shot in the dark, done with hope rather than conviction, Darkness That’s what you get. This is not a good start at all. Written and directed by Devang Bhavsar, this cheap crime caper is extremely cheap.
Neither the makers nor the actors who portray the various characters have any idea what they are headed in. Thankfully, the audience is not aware of this. The film is so lame that it doesn’t take more than ten minutes to unravel itself.
DarknessStreaming on JioCinema, absolutely free for all. Barring lead actor Vikrant Massey – he plays a Pune-based crime reporter who is adept at disguises and sting operations – the film’s haphazard array of characters come and go without any coherence.
a bunch of weird people Darkness Had the screenplay had any idea how to arrange them half decently, these combinations could have made for an entertaining affair. The madness on display here is nothing of the inspiring sort. It scrapes the bottom of the barrel and, needless to say, finds nothing of value.
In fact, nothing that happens while Blackout is happening makes any sense. The city is gripped by darkness on a supposedly dry night, but the characters on the street, in the hospital, in the cemetery, inside the liquor store, and finally in a gangster’s den have no visibility problems due to the power grid going down.
As the journalist roams the city, he is joined by a homeless drunkard (Sunil Grover) with a past, a couple of influencers-cum-thieves (real-life video producers Karan Sonawane and Saurabh Ghadge) and a young woman (Mouni Roy) who pretends to be in trouble for some reason.
And as the film moves back and forth in time, we are introduced to a corrupt policeman (Prasad Oak) who strikes a nefarious deal, a disgraced politician (Chhaya Kadam) who is waiting for a chance to strike back, and a stubborn detective (Jisshu Sengupta) who is described as the Byomkesh Bakshi of Pune.
The city is plunged into darkness as a gang of criminals plan and execute a robbery. In the hours before and after the robbery, journalist Lenny D’Souza (Massey), who has been sent by his wife to buy eggs and bread, lurches from one crisis to another.
His car collides with a van, causing it to spin out of control. He discovers a chest of cash and jewellery in the boot. He then gets into another accident. As the night progresses, Lenny faces the evil wielding powers of a drunk, two thieving Instagrammers and a woman who asks for help.
The car runs out of fuel. The drunk asks for a litre or two of single malt whisky for himself. The two petty thieves hope to make money by harassing Lenny.
As the mayhem escalates, the film also features a wife and a friend – played by Anantvijay Joshi, who recently shared some more meaningful footage with Massey 12th fail – To complete the story of an unlucky man who is constantly surrounded by disasters. Husband and friend have added to Lenny’s problems.
Vikrant Massey, with a poorly written role, leaves no stone unturned to keep this shoddy film afloat. He gives it his all. Unfortunately, due to the absence of logic and any sort of comic rhythm, there is nothing in Blackout to look forward to in the hope of achieving something.
Massey is like a driver sitting blindfolded at the wheel of a car with no brakes. He struggles to keep himself from ending up in a fragmented heap of a film. Credit where credit is due, he never stops trying.
As for the cast – many of them proven talents, including Chhaya Kadam and Jisshu Sengupta – they are criminally useless. In the confusion they are caught in, Kadam and Sengupta get two and a half scenes each. They just go through the motions.
Sunil Grover is miscast as a cheap poetry-spewing drunkard whose present dilemmas are rooted in an eventful past. Sooraj Pops shines as a gangster who is given a brief and completely pointless role.
All the characters together do a lot of running around Darkness But the film always seems completely comatose. The potential of the concept – a series of strange people caught up in an endless mess on a night when the lights go out and stay out – is completely squandered by a screenplay that doesn’t know better.
Darkness It seems like a hastily created creation that would have been better scrapped at the scripting stage itself. It’s hard to understand how something that was such a desperate grope in the dark got this far.
Mould:
Vikrant Massey, Mouni Roy, Sunil Grover, Jishu Sengupta, Karan Sudhakar Sonawane, Chhaya Kadam, Saurabh Dilip Ghadge, Ruhani Sharma, Anantvijay Joshi, Prasad Oak, Sooraj Pops, Kelly Dorjee
Director:
Devang Shashin Bhavsar
