Chup: Revenge of the Artist review – a killer Bollywood horror to frighten film critics

Director R Balki will need to have bought a kick out of penning this very pleasurable poison-pen letter to movie criticism during which a Mumbai serial killer stalks the practitioners of our noble occupation. Se7en-style, the killer tailors the murders to the critique; woe betide the hack who thoughtlessly writes: “An image whose coronary heart is in the suitable place, however whose different organs are in every single place.” Not solely is that this premise a droll kick up the arse for the Scream-style meta-slasher, it needs to be the primary movie during which somebody says “I want a critic” in the identical crucial tone often reserved for a Swat crew or an elite hitman.

First for cancellation is the career-assassin journalist discovered seated on his bathroom, scored round his torso with bloody grooves. Police chief Mathur (Sunny Deol) twigs that the triangle carved into his brow is, the truth is, an uncompleted star, and that the killer, the “critics’ critic”, is “score” his victims. In the meantime, Nila (Shreyer Dhanwanthary) is the brand new leisure reporter on the Mumbai Submit. A movie fanatic who likes to stay inside earshot of the musical numbers emanating from her native studio, she appears to be falling into her personal film romance when she meets strapping florist Danny (Dulquer Salmaan). To this point, so masala – aside for the truth that, in non-public, Danny holds Norman Bates-style conversations with himself.

Balki, whose final movie was the 2018 sanitary-towel comedy Pad Man, has a knack for a topical hook. Chup efficiently skewers not simply the tense film-maker/critic relationship, however is aware of completely the place to place its finger to finest needle Movie Twitter: it calls out hot-take retailers, overly constructive and corrupt reviewers, and this exalted calling’s self-importance. “I can’t stay like this any extra – like a terrorist assault,” says the spouse of 1 critic underneath police safety. Balki even manages to make Chup’s disparate sides – the satirical police process and dulcet romance – work productively in tandem. The latter more and more places a bloody, ironic spin on Bollywood fantasy, as Danny seems to be a fanboy of the lamented Guru Dutt, the celebrated writer-director who could have killed himself in 1964 on the age of 39 within the wake of the dangerous reception to his remaining movie, Kaagaz Ke Phool.

However as Amitabh Bachchan, cameoing, says: “Cinema wants fearless voices for its evolution”; somebody has to inform Chup the place it doesn’t fairly click on. Salmaan – although typically efficient in his eerie affableness – golf equipment us over the pinnacle with the cut up persona stuff. The sound designer who got here up with the weird cell phone trill that accompanies vital plot factors must be shot. And at properly over two hours, the movie stretches the plausibility of each his premise and the performances on the rack on the end. Maybe I must be extra cautious how I phrase issues, however it’s a caustic and engaging movie for essentially the most half.