'Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video' movie review: Nimrat Kaur and Radhika Madan's film needed to be sharper

Cast: Nimrat Kaur, Radhika Madan, Bhagyashree, Summet Vyas, Soham Majumdar Director: Mikhil Musale Language: Hindi Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video begins with a shot of the gorgeous Marina Bay Sands. The next shot is the opposite, almost ghastly. An inebriated Sajini Shinde (played by Radhika Madan) walks to her room, collapses on her bed, and the film moves to a flashback, explaining why she’s inebriated and has collapsed on her bed. The explanation is in the title. She’s a teacher at a school in Pune, and is celebrating her birthday until everything goes awry and awful. She goes missing and the case is handed over to Inspector Bela Barud. This cop is played by Nimrat Kaur , and even though she does try to have a ball with this erratic character, Sajini’s father, played by the ever commanding Subodh Bhave , utters the truest words for her. He says something in Marathi and I saw the subtitles that read- “Ask her to be a little more restrained.” Think of Anurag Kashyap’s _Ugly (2014)_ , where a little girl’s disappearance exposed the ugliness of every character hiding demonic intentions. The title was nothing but a metaphor to establish the darkness that looms in each of us. But this film, directed by Mikhil Musale, whose Gujarati film Wrong Side Raju won the National Award, is never able to spice or juice up the potential of a cracker of a premise. The first reason being the narrative’s inability to decide its tone; it wants to be a comedy but also a thriller. It wants to be a whodunnit but also drive home emotional sermons on life, sacrifices, and principles. There are as many as four writers here- Mikhil Musale, Parinda Joshi, Anu Singh Choudhary, Kshitij Patwardhan, and just as many genres stuffed into one film. There are mild moments of curiosity, especially with Soham Majumdar, who plays Sajini’s fiancée. He flirts with her colleague after she has disappeared, openly records their intimate videos, comically helps her brother after a chaotic chase sequence, and also effortlessly lies in an interview to plead innocent. Alas, the other characters don’t stand out as much. Sumeet Vyas is pretty much wasted in the role of a lawyer and Radhika Madan can surely do better, especially after a fiery debut in Pataakhaa five years ago. The final shot of the film has Kaur lying on the grass with her pets and gazing at the skies, and lecturing us about life, death, and courage. This is totally unlike the way her character was introduced and progressing. She was almost a motor-mouth, or as her colleague Inspector Ram Pawar (Chinmay Mandlekar) said, ‘Dooberman’. A Doberman in the guise of a human herself has three pets, two of them are named Whiskey and Soda, this is an information given to us by a close-up of the keychains in her house. What’s the name of the third? The mystery behind Sajini Shinde’s disappearance is obviously solved. Now time for this. Rating: 2.5 (out of 5 stars)

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