Bornoporichoy Serial Killer Gets A New Life

If it were not for the  excruciatingly  authentic Abir Chatterjee playing the compulsive killer, this film’s killer instincts would have gone  for a toss. The problems in the narration here are symptomatic of the larger  problems that plague Bangla cinema.

Bornoporichoy wants to  be a big  bright  slick serial-killer thriller comparable with what Bollywood churns out when  it sets  its  heart to it. Sadly the heart  is missing in this  vapid study of  crime,  death and  mortality. The writing  is woefully  wound-up  and unnecessarily tense.A  lot  of  the  writing is clearly kitschy and  by the time Jisshu is  chasing  Abir on a mo-bike across  Kolkata’s  crowded streets, the  promising film begins to resemble  one  of   Sanjay Gadhvi’s  Dhoom  films without the sparkle.

The  background music and  songs  leaning heavily on Rock sounds, is also for the most part inappropriate  in bringing out the tragic  elements in  the killer’s life.Aabir Chatterjee as Arko, the killer with a  tragic backstory  , does a finely  nuanced  job of giving   his  character a bedrock of  vague compassion. He plays  the devious  killer with a  cool stealth  defiantly moving away from  the potboiler  mood  of  the narration.

The  film’s biggest  problem is Jisshu Sengupta. Once  a fine actor he is now reduced to a hammy version of Sanjeev Kumar. Not that his character  is in any way blessed with subtlety.  Jisshu’s  Dhononjoy a  burnt-out cop with  serious  family and  alcohol issues . He embodies every cliché of the  filmy cop’s  life, down to the  clever calculating  mind which can pre-empt  the killer’s move even when befogged with alcohol.

Regrettably while Dhononjoy maps the  killer’s moves, the storytelling  lacks commensurate killer  moves, rapidly  losing its sting  as it  stumbles shakily towards a climax that seems borrowed  from the Shah  Rukh Khan starrer Fan.

The film’s efficacy  hinges on the two main protagonists’ cat-and-mouse moves. Both the lead actors  seem  working at cross  purposes. The  supporting cast  is   shadowy and sketchy with the cops on duty standing  staring open mouthed at Jisshu Sengupta as he sprouts genius revelations  through an  alcoholic haze. Were it not for Abir Chatterjee’s thoughtful  performance this  serial-killer  thriller would be as  thrilling as a pickle  without the spicy filling.

Bland is a word that comes  to  mind  repeatedly while watching the self consciously stylish killer thriller.