Starring: Kay Kay Menon, Ashish Vidyarthi, Tisca Chopra, Sakshi Sem

Directed: Manish Gupta

Rating: ***1/2

What do you look for in a murder mystery? A gripping tale that keeps you guessing and engaged right till the very end. Rahasya manages to do exactly that sans the help of any clichéd Bollywood melodrama. It’s crisp and thrilling Agatha Christie style whodunit story hardly leaves you with any yawn stifling moment. And yes, the movie only bears a remote and really ignorable resemblance to the Aarushi Talwar murder case.

Ayesha Mahajan (Sakshi Sem), the teenage daughter of doctor couples Sachin and Aarti Mahajan (Ashish Vidyarthi and Tisca Chopra) is murdered in cold-blood in her own bedroom in the dead of night. Maid Remi (brilliantly played by Ashwini Kalsekar) discovers Ayesha’s dead body the next morning and gloom plunges into the plush and hitherto happy household of the Mahajans. A quintessentially disinterested Mumbai police inspector (played by Nimay Bali) is put in charge of the case and he lazily tries joining the dots of the case. The initial needle of suspicion points at Mahajan’s househelp Chetan who has gone missing since the murder and another local Muslim boy Riyaz Noorani who is believed to have been Ayesha’s lover and has mysteriously disappeared as well. As the bereaved Mahajans sit down for a condolence prayer meet of their beloved daughter, the police swoops down and announces Dr. Sachin as the prime suspect in the murder case and arrests him. The case is then transferred to the CBI for further investigation. The dynamic Kay Kay Menon enters the fray announcing himself ala James Bond... Hi I’m Paraskar, Sunil Paraskar….Do you eat walnuts? It’s good for the brain.

The walnut chewing CBI officer then digs deeper into case to unravel the missing and loose strands. From Sachin Mahajan, the pendulum of suspicion soon swings towards their neighbour couple Brinda Chabbria ( Mita Vashisth) and husband who too seem to have enough motives to commit the crime. Other fringe characters in the movie offer it the much needed thrust in terms of weaving significant mystery over the already complicated murder of the teenage girl.  From rounding up the initial suspect Riyaz Noorani to finally discovering the dead body of the missing servant Chetan, Sunil Paraskar unearths shocking details of the case which mysteriously deepens with every passing clue he stumbles upon. Will this CBI sleuth find the real killer? Ofcourse he does. How he does that is the Rahasya you need to watch.

Director Manish Gupta and his casting director deserve kudos for the brilliant casting. The actors and their revered style lift the movie by notches. While Ashish Vidyarthi displays amazing vulnerability as the father and prime suspect in his own daughter’s murder case, Tisca captures well the angst of grappling with her daughter’s loss and husband’s shocking incarceration. The rest of the actors fit well into the fabric of the story but the man who walks away with top honours is Kay Kay Menon, an actor who never fails to surprise us with his sheer brilliance which radiates in every scene that he occupies. As a simple and scrupulously honest CBI officer who jumps out of his case reverie and yanks his eyebrows when Mita’s husband sugar coats him into accepting a hefty bribe to listening to the constant irritating drudgery of his wife (Usha Jadhav), Kay Kay excels in a role which seems to have been tailor made only for him. His character is shorn of the usual glamour or dynamism that Bollywood sleuths come handy with. Instead it is the raw and real acting that makes him lovable and the story a cutting-edge one.

The movie is decently paced and Manish has made sure to leave no loose ends. The background score was a big letdown as a thriller often needs an edgy music to keep the excitement levels heightened and tensed at all times. The movie loses some of its sheen in the climax which looked a bit too bland considering the huge built-up provided initially. Something a bit more fast-paced or let’s say Bollywoodish with little action and few stunts thrown in perhaps could have given it a lot more finesse. But then real life situations are never dramatized and may at times seem plain and boring.  Nevertheless, the climax is still worth a watch because of the guessing game that audience themselves that start playing in their minds. The absence of any mindless songs is also a huge relief.

For all the hype and hooplah that was generated in the wake of the controversy surrounding Rahasya that it allegedly revisits the infamous Aarushi Talwar murder case, this movie has not only proved that suspicion wrong but has come up triumphant on all major fronts. Manish deserves huge applause for sticking to his guns and fighting tooth and nail to get the movie released despite mounting legal hurdles. The movie should also serve as a reminder for filmmakers like Neeraj Pandey (Baby) who deem it fit to scuttle away a talent like Kay Kay Menon by casting him in a nothing role in a big budget movie.

For all those wanting to enjoy the weekend watching and solving a good murder mystery, Rahasya is where they should be heading.