AndhaDhun

A complete knockout punch in the dark, de noir, thriller filmmaking genre, shot with eyes wide open to grab the veins of morality, faith, fate, aspirations, the charisma of evil, the philosophy of life and dark, dark humor. ANDHADHUN is a masterstroke by the master Sriram Raghavan who is now the uncrowned king of Bollywood's dark, de noir, thriller genre and the true inherent of modern day Hitchcock in this part of the world.

Andhadhun is inspired by a French short film called The Piano Tuner. The film followed the adventures of Adrien (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet), a piano tuner who pretends to be blind in order to get more work. Though his only motive is to make more money, Adrien inadvertently ends up seeing a side of people no one else sees.

'Har artist ka koi na koi talent hota hai... Mera talent focus karna hai...' Sriram Raghavan, rightly like the dialogue, has set his focus on making the usually serious murder mystery a gripping yet entertaining one. He has obviously stood up to expectations and from first frame to the last, every scene has a meaning and is related so as to go in a flow.

AndhaDhun is Sriram Raghavan's another thriller flick, after Badlapur and Johnny Gaddar. Starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte and Tabu, the movie is intriguing and leaves the audience in pleasant shock at various occasions. Right from its visually impaired pianist protagonist (Ayushmann) to the mystery-thriller premise, the noir black-comedy has created a significant buzz in the film circuit.

Akash, a blind pianist (or not?), has a dream of moving to London for some kind of Piano competition. For days he's trying to complete his piece and then he meets Sophia (Radhika Apte). Sophia helps him to play at a club where he meets Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan) who's has been a star of 1970s. Pramod invites Akash to play for his wife Simi (Tabu) on her birthday.

Everybody knows how a mystery should work. In Andhadhun, even a sweetly officious old lady prodding a policeman at a funeral, urging him to question the widow about a suspicion, has a clear idea of how he should conduct the enquiry. "Casual, casual," she entreats with a hissed whisper, as if she has done this before and knows better. Or, at the very least, as if she has watched enough films to warn her against the contrary.

"What is life?" asks a character in Sriram Raghavan's new film Andhadhun. He gives the answer himself - it all depends on the liver. This liver could be the person living the life or it could be an organ in your body. We are now in Sriram's world. Everything has at least two meanings and nothing is what it seems. Because Sriram is Hindi cinema's thriller master. His films are filled with dark and dirty people - criminals and gamblers, murderers and conmen. His films are also filled with references to older Hindi films. But in Andhadhun, Sriram takes the homage further.

In a recent interview to The Hindu, filmmaker Sriram Raghavan talked about how a long sequence in the first half of Andhadhun is the reason why he made the entire film. Without revealing anything about the seven to eight-minute long scene, I would say that when it comes to Hindi cinema, it is one of the most exquisitely crafted and perfectly realised situations on screen.

Sriram Raghavan's latest movie, an official adaptation of Oliver Trennier's French short film The Piano Tuner (2010), expands on themes previously explored in the director's crime thrillers. The tone of Andhadhun is wacky and wicked, the pace as hectic as a late train trying to make up lost time and the characters amoral in a businesslike way as they lay claim to money that doesn't belong to them.

Akash (Ayushmann) is a Pune-based, visually-challenged pianist whose only dream is to fly to London and hone his music skills further. He's ready to experiment with anything so that he can achieve his goal. However, he gets caught in a web and actually 'witnesses' a crime. In his attempt to leave the mess behind, he makes an escape bid.

One of my favourite directors Sriram Raghavan is back with 'Andhadhun' another delicious suspense thriller. Raghavan is a James Hadley Chase & Vijay Anand fan, his first & best film 'Johnny Gaddar' was a tribute to these masters, as Raghvan puts it. In addition to the riveting twisted classic thriller 'Johnny Gaddar' the director also gave us 'Ek Haseena Thi' and 'Badlapur' both very watchable films which went on to attain a semi cult status in their own right.

If Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes had to put their cryptic minds to a cinematic canvas, there would be only name who could do justice to the genre - Sriram Raghavan. This piece isn't an exercise to wax eloquently about his genius imagination and how twisted it can get. We have witnessed that in the past with the vengeful Badlapur or the technically ahead of its time Ek Hasina Thi.

In 2016, Priyadarshan made a Malayalam film about a blind man (played by Mohanlal) who becomes an unwitting 'eyewitness' to a murder. The hero's visual disability in Oppam was accompanied by a heightened sense of hearing and smell that made him a potential threat to the killer. Now what happens if a killer's self-preservation instinct causes them to not care that the 'witness' is sightless? That question was the starting point of an intriguing French 13-minuter titled L'accordeur (The Piano Tuner) from 2010, directed by Oliver Treiner.

Sriram Raghavan is known for his knack of dishing out twisty neo-noir, and he lives up to his reputation with AndhaDhun - a dangerously wicked thriller with dollops of dark comedy. Very few filmmakers manage to crack this genre and Sriram is adept at it. His film smartly questions your faith in 'seeing is believing'.

Under that silver, wiry mop of hair dwells the brain of a reckless genius. Director Sriram Raghavan's fertile mind is a breeding ground for awe-inducing mischief. The degree of devilry it plots in Andhadhun, a thriller so scrumptiously bereft of morality, it's to be seen to believe.

Bollywood doesn't do thrillers well. About the only exception to this rule is one man: Sriram Raghavan. His latest, Andhadhun, is a glorious keep-'em-guessing thriller, which never loses sight of that most important question: so what happens next? Part of the joy of a good thriller is being let loose amongst a bunch of people who say one thing, do another, and mean something else entire.

Down the decades - from the time of Anmol Ghadi, Andaz and Sangam to the era of Saajan, DDLJ and Parineeta - grand pianos have stirred great emotions in Hindi film song situations. Euphoric, romantic, playful, plaintive, gloomy, et al: they've traversed a wide gamut. In Sriram Raghavan's sly, smart thriller AndhaDhun, which is a tip of the hat to Vividh Bharti's Chhaya Geet and Doordarshan's Chitrahaar, the musical instrument for all seasons gets an all-new portentous ring.

A blind singer, absolutely brilliant on piano, has mild manners and electric fingers. He gets the highest tip in the history of the club he plays at. When he is told about it, he says he is saving up so as to have enough money to go to London one day. This conversation has nothing suspicious or extraordinary but in AndhaDhun, all such run-of-the-mill dialogues make a lot of sense.