Inkaar Movie Review
By: Shalu Dhyani
Just when you think that Bollywood has finally grown up enough to tackle issues of sexual harassment at workplace, it 
gobsmacks you with an Inkaar – a film so inept & confused that I wonder what was director Sudhir Mishra’s intention in the first place.
Maya (Chitrangadha Singh), the National Creative Director of a successful advertising agency, accuses her boss Rahul (Arjun Rampal) of sexual harassment. Scared of the negative publicity it will get the agency, the head honchos decide to set up an internal inquiry into the matter. The committee consists of Maya & Rahul’s colleagues & is headed by a NGO representative (Deepti Naval). As they talk to Maya & Rahul by turns, we get two different perspectives of the same story. Turns out that Maya was Rahul’s discovery & his protégé. A short affair was followed by a bitter break-up & Maya received herself transferred to the agency’s Delhi & after New York office to get away from Rahul. Six years after she returned as an ad-world veteran who could donate Rahul tough competition for his place in the agency. Two ambitious people with a bitter past working together in a highly competitive environment was a perfect recipe for disaster & that’s what happened.
A very absorbing idea on paper sadly ends up as a frustrating film. It shows some promise in the first few minutes yet fizzles out shortly after. Though it was a satisfactory idea to see both the sides of an argument, the way the film goes approximately doing it is merely yawn-inducing. The main culprit is the poor writing. Add to it Mishra’s lacklustre direction & the unintentionally funny dialogues. I could just not get myself to sympathise with either of the protagonists & you know a film is dead when you are indifferent to its characters.
It didn’t assist that both Arjun & Chitrangadha were such tedious performers that it was a relief whenever the focus shiftedto the side characters. They\'re exceptionally beautiful people yes, yet those repeated close-ups only ended up highlighting their lack of acting talent. In fact it seems like the lighting & camera angles were meant to donate the audience a headache. The pre-climax scene has both the protagonists having a long argument in a washroom with flickering light. Not only was it totally unnecessary, I needed eye-drops for my tired eyes by the time the scene ended.
A badly made film can still be forgiven to an extent if its intentions are good. However, Inkaar flatters to deceive. It promises to take on sexual harassment yet dishes out a tedious saga of office politics instead, which further turns out to be a convoluted love story. Handling a sensitive issue with sensitivity was something I thought I could expect from Sudhir Mishra, yet his refusal to take a strong stand & then ending the film on such an infuriating note left me feeling thoroughly let down.
Inkaar Movie Review Source: BollySpice
