From the Director Vivek Agnihotri who directed movies like Chocolate, Zid and the controversial Buddha In A Traffic Jam, the gritty ‘The Tashkent Files’ with stellar star-cast would be a crime to miss. The Tashkent Files is about the unsolved mystery of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death with no political overtones.
Agnihotri has come up with a gripping storyline based on well-researched and hard hitting facts with the presentation which is rich. It proves yet again that content and screen play is king in film industry. The unique and thrilling story keeps you guessing as one can see that the Director is in complete control of the subject and he doesn’t even let the attention of the audience dwindle even for a moment.
The Tashkent Files is not just a movie, it’s a tale where the story begins with a rookie journalist who is looking for a spoof to get a break through in her career. She gets a call from an unknown person who gives her a task to expose the mysterious death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. During that journey of solving the mysterious death, with hard hitting facts she exposes how corrupt is our ecosystem which has been playing with our real history.
The dialogues are well written, the script is above average and screenplay makes it lot better. Cinematography is the main strength of the entire movie. Editing is crisp, costumes were well designed as per the characters, the background score is incredible with no songs in the movie.
Shweta Basu Prasad, the lead actress a rookie journalist who is well involved in her character throughout the movie, takes away the entire attention. She manages to make her own space in presence of other stellar star-cast, the first one being by none other than the lengend himself Mithun Daa. And yet again, no words for Mithun Daa, there is no role which can’t play. His subtle acting as a politician is impeccable. The second one, again no words, fantastic acting from Naseeruddin Shah as a politician, he is in his true class. Pallavi Joshi and Pankaj Tripathi are absolute delight to watch, both are terrific and completely justify their own characters.
If the first half of the film goes about layering the content, the second half is intense and fast moving that leaves all of us spellbound. Technically the movie is great in all aspects. The entire cast does a great justice to their characters to make it one of the finest piece of movie based on hard hitting facts.
You will have goosebumps throughout the movie on how it exposes the ecosystem and the exposure of the murder of Lal Bahadur Shastri. The climax will be an eye opener for many but that is how Vivek Agnihotri keeps the audience guessing and occupied.
Though the movie is going through controversies, it is indeed a commendable effort by the makers. Overall it’s a movie which is sensible with deep facts and at the box office this would appeal to the targeted audience and has extremely high chances of becoming a block buster.
I’ll give it a 4/5 stars.
