Via Darjeeling? At your own risk…

Discussing an unsolved mystery and drawing too many conclusions about nothing can be fun sometimes, especially when you are just chilling with friends on a dark rainy night with nothing much to do. Well this is the concept of ‘Via Darjeeling’ and frankly it was the concept only which took me to watch the movie, especially on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But to my dismay [and God knows whose delight?] only the concept turned out to be interesting.

Via Darjeeling is the story of few friends [looked more like foes more often than not] sitting together enjoying their drinks with kebabs, when one of them a police officer [Vinay Pathak] tells them about a case he investigated in Darjeeling. The case is about a honeymoon couple Ankur [Kay Kay Menon] and Sonali Kulkarni where on the last day all of a sudden Ankur goes missing and the police is not able to trace him. Now all of them start telling their own conclusions about what exactly would have happened? Was Ankur murdered? Or did he commit suicide, but the police never found any body. Whether the wife was having an affair or was Ankur a fraud?

During the 100 minute runtime they tried to explore different possibilities, but unfortunately this is where the director fell flat on his face. He completely failed to develop on the brilliant idea and everytime a new version comes up, the story changes completely. The director was so obsessed with changing it, that in the last version the whole idea has been turned upside down. Had he sticked to fewer possibilities and developed them the movie would have been much better. Moreover the pace of the movie is also a bit slow, which is like an icing on the cake. The movie is supposed to be a thriller, but a guy sitting behind me was saying i thought it was a thriller, what is this?

The performance of the actors is good, as with a line up of Vinay Pathak, Kay kay Menon, Rajat Kapoor this is least what you can expect. But don’t go by this line up only. Watch the movie without any expectations on a dull afternoon when there is nothing else to do and you will not be disappointed.

At the end, a warning for all the Ankurs, it is better if you don’t go for it. Not because it is an average movie, but because during the whole movie Sonali Kulkarni is calling this name so many times, that you won’t have heard in your whole life, you will actually start responding to her everytime she say Ankur.

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