Amitabh Bachchan Archives

Review: ‘Kalki 2898 AD,’ starring Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone and Disha Patani

June 28, 2024

by Carla Hay

Prabhas in “Kalki 2898 AD” (Photo courtesy of Prathyangira Cinemas and AA Creations)

Directed by Nag Ashwin

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India in the year 2898 (and briefly in 3102 B.C.), the fantasy action film “Kalki 2898 AD” features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with some white people and black people) who are mortal humans or immortal gods.

Culture Clash: A bounty hunter gets caught up in a race against time with heroes and villains to find the woman who will give birth to a deity named Kalki.

Culture Audience: “Kalki 2898 AD” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching overly long action movies that have more style than substance.

Amitabh Bachchan in “Kalki 2898 AD” (Photo courtesy of Prathyangira Cinemas and AA Creations)

Bloated and incoherent, “Kalki 2898 AD” is weighed down by bad acting, a rambling story, uneven pacing, and erratic visual effects. This fantasy action film, based on Indian mythology, rips off well-known franchises “Star Wars,” “Mad Max” and “Pacific Rim” for much of how the movie looks. The characters in the movie also have hollow personalities and lackluster or terrible dialogue. And this nearly three-hour movie does not justify its overly long run time, when the story could’ve been told in a movie that is two hours or less.

Directed by Nag Ashwin, “Kalki 2898 AD” was co-written by Ashwin and Rutham Samar. It’s one of those unfortunately long-winded and bombastic movies that seems to think over-the-top visual spectacles will automatically make an action film entertaining. The characters are so poorly written, viewers will have a hard time remembering anything memorable that these characters said after the movie ends. “Kalki 2898 AD” just careens from one fight scene to the next.

“Kalki 2898 AD” (which takes place in a fantasy version of India) does a substandard job of introducing characters and explaining the purpose of the story. The movie’s opening scene takes place in 3102 B.C., after the Kurukshetra War. Ashwatthama (played by Kushal) is the young adult son of a warrior named Dronacharya. While invoking the Brahmashirastra, Ashwatthama shoots an arrow at a pregnant princess named Uttarā (played by Malvika Nair), whose unborn son is Parakshit, in an attempt to kill Uttarā and her unborn child.

The deity Krishna then confronts Ashwatthama on a battlefield filled with dead bodies, Krishna curses Ashwatthama to a life of immortality. A magical gem that Ashwatthama has is then taken away. Much of this movie is about Ashwatthama trying to find this gem so he can place it back in his forehead and regain certain powers.

The only way for Ashwatthama to break the curse is to find an unborn child named Kalki, who is supposed to be the last living representation of the god Vishu. Ashwatthama knows that Kalki will be born centuries in the future. And so, finding Kalki is villain Ashwatthama’s main quest in the story.

“Kalki 2898 AD” then cuts to about 6,000 years later, in the year 2898. Even though Ashwatthama received this immortality curse when he was a young man, he somehow still grows up to look like an elderly man who’s stuck looking like he’s in his 80s. Amitabh Bachchan, who has the role of elderly Ashwatthama, was in his early 80s when he filmed this movie.

If the “Kalki 2898 AD” filmmakers had more imagination, they would have made Ashwatthama actually look like he’s more than 6,000 years old. There was certainly enough money spent on visual effects in other aspects of the film, but none was spent on imagining what a 6,000-year-old immortal person would look like. The visual effects in “Kalki 2898 AD” are hit-and-miss: Sometimes, they look spectacular. Other times, they just look tacky.

Most of the action takes place in a desolate desert city called Kasi, which looks like imitation production sets from “Mad Max” and “Star Wars” films. Kasi is a city populated by survivors of an apocalypse. Kasi is ruled by a tyrant god king named Supreme Yaskin (played by Kamal Haasan), who lives in a pyramid-shaped structure called the Complex, which hovers above Kasi. The Complex uses Earth’s resources to have an idyllic oasis existence for those who can afford to stay there.

Yaskin is aided by two nefarious subordinates who carry out Yaskin’s orders of oppression: Commander Manas (played by Saswata Chatterjee) is the head of an army called Raiders. Counsellor Bani is on the frontlines in a lot of the dirty work. There’s also a group of rebels resisting this totalitarian government.

It’s all very much a concept copy from the 1977 “Star Wars” movie. Just substitute Emperor Palpatine for Yaskin, Darth Vader for Commander Manas, Grand Moff Tarkin for Counsellor Bani, and Stormtroopers for Raiders. “Kalki 2898 AD” didn’t even bother changing the name of the rebel group to something that doesn’t used the word “rebels,” which is the same word that the “Star Wars” movies have for the group of resisting fighters.

In the city of Kasi, fertile females are kidnapped and sold into imprisonment as part of a scientific experiment called Project K. These female prisoners are impregnated through artificial insemination. The fetuses of pregnant women who are trapped in Project K are supposed to be used as serum to extend the life of Yaskin.

Only fetuses that are more than 120 days old can effectively be used for this serum. The problem is that most of these Project K women can’t carry their pregnancies past 120 days. However, there’s a pregnant woman named Sumathi (played by Deepika Padukone), who is given the code name SUM-80 in the Project K program, and she has a pregnancy that lasts for more than 120 days. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who her unborn child is.

The “Star Wars” influences abound in the presentation of “rogue warrior” Bhairava (played by Prabhas in “Kalki 2898 AD” Bhairava, who is a bounty hunter and frequent thief, is obviously a version of Han Solo from the “Star Wars” movies. Bhairava is a sarcastic and reluctant hero, who would rather carouse and get drunk in nightclubs, but he gets pulled into this “good versus evil” saga anyway. Bhairava is the pilot of a space ship and has a talking robot co-pilot named BU-JZI, also known as Bujji (voiced by Keerthy Suresh), which is a less-entertaining version of C-3PO from the “Star Wars” movies.

Unlike the movies in the “Stars Wars,” “Mad Max” and “Pacific Rim” franchises, “Kalki 2898” has more female characters and gives them slightly more to do. But that’s not saying much when these characters are so shallow, and much of their worth is defined by how fertile they might or might not be. The female characters who are part of the action include Mariam (played by Shobhana), the leader of a secret city called Shambhala; Kyra (played by Anna Ben), a Shambhala rebel; and Roxie (played by Disha Patani), who is Bhairava’s love interest. Roxie is nowhere close to being as charismatic and intelligent as Leia, Han Solo’s love interest in “The Star Wars” movies.

The space ships and costumes in “Kalki 2898” are influenced by how space ships and costumes look in “Star Wars” movies. Many of the large, roving land vehicles in the desert are straight out of what can be seen in “Mad Max” films. The heroes in “Kalki 2898” operate giant robots that look like they could be siblings of the giant robots in the “Pacific Rim” films. All of this unoriginality gets tiresome to watch and even more irritating because the characters are so sloppily written.

There are people presented as holograms, and there are attacks from clones (in other words, more “Star Wars” concept ripoffs) that are part of the “Kalki 2898 AD” story. Some of this movie’s viewers might be dazzled by all the high-priced visuals in “Kalki 2898 AD,” but the movie’s story is just a complete mess that doesn’t have much innovation. And even worse: The movie ends on a cliffhanger because of planned sequels, thereby prolonging this excessively long and tedious saga. “Kalki 2898 AD” became a huge and immediate hit in India. But just because a movie is popular doesn’t mean it has good or imaginative filmmaking.

Prathyangira Cinemas and AA Creations released “Kalki 2898 AD” in U.S. cinemas on June 27, 2024, the same day that the movie was released in India.

Review: ‘Uunchai,’ starring Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Boman Irani

November 20, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Uunchai”

Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya

Hindi and Nepalese with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India and Nepal, the dramatic film “Uunchai” features a cast of predominantly Indian characters (and with some Nepalese people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After their longtime friend unexpectedly dies, three elderly men decide to fulfill their dead friend’s wish to take an adventure trip and hike on Mount Everest, despite people telling them that they’re too old for this type of physical activity.

Culture Audience: “Uunchai” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s principal stars, but “Uunchai” is filled with cringeworthy stereotypes and takes too long to get to the Mount Everest part of the story.

Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Boman Irani in “Uunchai” (Photo courtesy of Yash Raj Films)

“Uunchai” takes a simple and not-very-original concept (elderly people going on an adventure trip) and ruins it with a bloated run time of 173 minutes, very hokey scenarios, and mediocre acting. “Uunchai” (which means “height” in Hindi) is supposed to be about three elderly men who take a trip to Mount Everest in Nepal, as a tribute to their recently deceased friend. It takes the movie about 45 minutes to finally show them starting this road trip. The movie is half over by the time they get to Mount Everest.

Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya and written by Abhishek Dixit, “Uunchai” is a perfect example of a movie that is overstuffed with filler scenes that are completely unnecessary. And just as irritating is the movie’s unrelenting predictability. “Uunchai” tries to throw in a badly contrived “surprise” toward the end of the film. It’s really no surprise at all, considering that the movie’s central conflict is that these old men want to prove to naysayers that they’re strong enough and healthy enough to go on this Mount Everest trip.

“Uunchai” begins in Delhi, India, at a birthday celebration for a retired man named Bhupen (played by Danny Denzongpa), whose three best friends are at the party. Bhupen is a never-married bachelor who does not have any biological family members who are in his life. His three best friends are his family. All four of the men are in their 60s or 70s.

The other three friends are:

Professor/author Amit Srivastava (played by Amitabh Bachchan), who is separated from his wife and has no children.
Bookstore owner Om Sharma (played by Anupam Kher), who is a widower with a married son, who manages Om’s store.
Boutique owner Javed Siddiqui (played by Boman Irani), who is married and has a married daughter.

Bhupen’s party is a joyous event. Not long after the party, Bhupen tells his three buddies that he wants to fulfill a longtime dream of going with these friends to Mount Everest. He doesn’t want to do anything too dangerous, such as try to climb Mount Everest. Bhupen wants to go to Mount Everest Base Camp, which offers hiking and exploring activities on Mount Everest.

Amit and Javed are politely open to the idea, but Om is the most skeptical and nervous about it. Om quips, “We can barely climb the stairs, let alone a mountain!” However, after the four men have a night of drunken partying at a pub, Om agrees to take the trip.

Not long after they have this discussion, Bhupen suddenly dies of heart attack, alone in his home. His friends are devastated, of course. After the funeral (Bhupen was cremated), Amit is looking through some of Bhupen’s possessions when he finds four tickets that Bhupen bought for the Mount Everest trip. It’s how Amit discovers that Bhupen had been planning to surprise Amit, Om and Javed with these tickets as a gift.

Amit is so emotionally moved, he insists to Om and Javed that they all take the trip as a tribute to Bhupen. They also decide that they will spread Bhupen’s ashes on Mount Everest. The plan is set in motion to take the trip in the near future. They are going to travel to Mount Everest by car. Amit will do the driving.

The friends have two potential obstacles: First, they have to get the approval of their doctors. Second, Javed knows that his very possessive and nagging wife Shabina Siddiqui (played by Needa Gupta), nicknamed Bhabhi, will not let him go on this trip. And so, Javed comes up with a plan to let Shabina go on the road trip with them but to drop her off at the home of their daughter Heeba (played by Sheen Dass), who lives in Gorakhpur, India—about213 kilometers (or 132 miles) southeast of Delhi.

Because it takes so long in the movie for this road trip to actually begin, “Uunchai” has several tedious scenes of Amit, Om and Javed going through physical training and medical checkups to prepare for their Mount Everest adventure. Amit’s doctor advises him not to go on the trip because of the high altitudes of Mount Everest. Amit responds that he’s not changing his plans for the trip: “Doctor, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

During this long and monotonous road trip, “Uunchai” fills up the time with irritating bickering, usually instigated by Shabina, who is miserable being on the road. In addition, Om has some emotional baggage to deal with because he is estranged from his brothers, who live in a rural area and who think that Om abandoned them to become a businessman in Delhi. Om and his brothers have inherited some property, which has caused a family feud that is detailed in the movie.

When the four travelers get to Lucknow, India, they meet a woman in her 60s named Mala Trivedi (played by Sarika), who had a history with Bhupen. Her history is exactly what you think it might be. (It’s all so predictable.) And it’s why Mala ends up going on the road trip too. Mala is also with the men when they go to Mount Everest.

“Uunchai” is so formulaic and so treacly with its obvious attempts to pull at people’s heartstrings, it become a chore to watch this movie because of the way it drags on and on, without any real character development and nothing exciting happening. By the time these travelers get to Mount Everest, you can easily guess that they will have a tour guide who’s skeptical that these senior citizens are capable of keeping up with the rest of the younger people in the group. This cynical tour guide is named Shraddha (played by Parineeti Chopra), and she gets into stereotypical arguments with these elderly men—especially with “alpha male” Amit, who is the most determined of the three pals to prove her wrong.

And speaking of clichés, expect to see a lot of scenes of the old men huffing and puffing, as they run out of breath and struggle to keep up with the rest of the group during their physically demanding activities at Mount Everest. As shown in the trailer for “Uunchai,” Om slips and falls and inveitably gets hurt. And there are more “look at the old people trying to be fearless hikers” spectacle scenes that are too similar to each other and repeated over and over.

“Uunchai” also pours on the schmaltz in eye-rolling ways, such as a scene where the elderly travelers end up playing soccer with some Buddhist monks (who are in their monk clothes) and some of the local Nepalese people. Mostly, the trip consists of generic hiking scenes that show some beautiful scenery but has a lot of uninspired dialogue and a few contrivances. For example, during the trip, Om is distracted when he hears about some warehouse problems that are affecting his business back in Delhi.

Amit, who is a successful and famous author, is supposed to have the most fascinating life out of the three pals, but his life is depicted in a very shallow way in the movie. The only insight to any personal growth that Amit might experience is early on in “Uunchai,” shortly after Bhupen has died, when Amit remembers some constructive criticism that Bhupen gave to Amit. Bhupen told Amit that Amit’s self-help books were starting to sound less like they came from the mind of a writer and more like they came from the mind of a salesman.

Amit’s marital problems, which are barely mentioned in the movie, are then dealt with in a rushed and phony way toward the end of the film. Nafisa Ali Sodhi has a small role in “Uunchai” as Abhilasha Srivastava, Amit’s estranged wife. Amit is supposedly re-evaluating his life after Bhupen’s sudden death, but Amit’s marriage is treated like an afterthought in the overall plot.

“Uunchai” is the type of over-inflated movie where much of the production budget was spent on traveling and hiring the famous actors who headline the film. That money is wasted if the movie just turns out to be stale mush that rehashes similar movies about elderly people who go on a “wish fulfillment/bucket list” trip. The acting isn’t terrible, but it’s terribly generic. For a movie of this annoyingly excessive length, “Uunchai” has very little to say that’s witty, enthralling or truly original.

Yash Raj Films released “Uunchai” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on November 11, 2022.

Review: ‘Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva,’ starring Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy and Nagarjuna Akkineni

September 9, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva”

Directed by Ayan Mukerji

Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the sci-fi/fantasy film in “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man finds out his connection to a secret society that channels mystical energy, as he is chased around by villains while he tries to prevent an apocalypse.

Culture Audience: “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Amitabh Bachchan and Ranbir Kapoor and will appeal to anyone who doesn’t mind watching sci-fi/fantasy movies that treat audiences like idiots.

Ranbir Kapoor and Akkineni Nagarjuna in “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” (Photo courtesy of Star India Pvt. Ltd./Walt Disney Pictures)

The over-indulgent and moronic “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is an example of what happens when people spend too much money to make a movie and not enough effort to craft a coherent story and offer good performances. This abomination is an absolute chore to watch and will test the patience of viewers who have better things to do with their time, such as stare at a wall. At least when you stare at a wall, you won’t be annoyed by a constant barrage of stupidity with tacky visual effects, soundtrack music that’s too loud, and acting and dialogue so bad, it will all make you question why so many people signed off on making this obvious train wreck.

Written and directed by Ayan Mukerji, “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is the first part of his so-called “Astraverse trilogy.” It’s as pretentious as it sounds. Here’s how this murky concept is explained in the production notes for “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva”:

“‘Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva’ begins with an image of sages in deep meditation in a mystical time in ancient India. The sages are gifted with the Light of the Universe—a Brahm-Shakti—a manifestation of the purest creative energy there is. From this Light, objects of power known as Astras are born.”

The description continues: “There are Astras that command the energy of Fire, Wind, Water and Earth, as well as Astras with the essence of diﬀerent animals and plants, all derived from the natural world. These include the Jalāstra, which commands the energy of water; the Pawanāstra, wind; the Agnyāstra, fire. The Vānarāstra gives the wielder the abilities of 1,000 monkeys, and the Nandi Astra gives users the strength of 1,000 bulls. (The Bull is the carrier of Lord Shiva in Hindu mythology.) The final Astra is the last to emerge from the Light, and it contains its collective essence, becoming the Lord of all the Others, the Brahmāstra.”

The description also says: “The sages take a solemn vow to protect these Astras, and as the guardians of the Brahmāstra, they name themselves the Brahmānsh, forming a secret society that will exist amongst other men and do good for the world with the power of the Astras. Time moves forward, and the Brahmānsh carries on as well, passing on the Astras generation to generation all the way into our world today, where the Brahmānsh still exist in secret.”

All this means is that viewers will see a bunch of people running around, spouting mystical nonsense, hunting for various religious artifacts, and using weather or laser beams to do battle in the expected “good versus evil” plot. And it will be dragged out into three movies that are as irritating and nonsensical and overly long as each other, under the guise of being “epic” filmmaking. The only thing “epic” about “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is how it’s a epic failure at clever and original filmmaking.

Sometimes, a sci-fi/fantasy movie that knows it’s silly has fun with the absurdity and makes it entertaining for the audience. “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is not that kind of movie. It looks like an unintentional parody of all the sloppy things that are in terrible sci-fi/fantasy films. But everything is taken so seriously in “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva,” which throws in some very eye-catching but cliché musical numbers.

“Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is an overload of sci-fi/fantasy stereotypes: There’s the good-looking lead actor, who plays a “chosen one” hero, who usually grew up without his parents, for one reason or another. And he usually finds out family secrets that are tied to his destiny/legacy. In this case, the hero’s name is Shiva (played by Ranbir Kapoor), who’s apparently a rock-star-like party DJ in his spare time and can draw festival-sized crowds, because that’s how he’s first seen on film.

There’s the older man who acts as a mentor to the hero. That’s the lazily named Guru (played by Amitabh Bachchan), who is supposed to be a sage leader but comes across as wooden and stiff. There’s the “secret society” of warriors/fighters who are allies to the hero. In this movie, this secret society is called Brahmāstra, with Guru as their leader.

There’s the pretty love interest who somehow does fight scenes, chase scenes and other action scenes that would break bones in real life, but she gets maybe a bruise or two, and her hair and makeup stay intact. That’s Isha (played by Alia Bhatt), who is every worst stereotype of the female love interest who lacks substance. She has some of the worst lines in this already horrendous movie.

This is what Isha and Shiva say in their “meet cute” moment, which happens after they lock eyes in a corny slow-motion shot at one of Shiva’s DJ dance parties, where people are worshipping the Hindu goddess Durga: An awestruck Isha says to Shiva: “Who are you?” Shiva replies, “What are you?” Then he says, “I really like you.” And within hours of meeting Isha, Shiva is telling her that he loves her. Try not to retch.

There’s the sought-after mysterious person who might hold the crucial answers to the hero’s quest. That’s someone named Anish Shetty, also known as Artist (played by Nagarjuna Akkineni), who has an important artifact that Shiva needs. He gets caught up in some of the fight scenes. All of the movie’s action scenes are either very far-fetched or just plain formulaic.

There’s the chief villain, who has any number of cronies. In “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva,” that chief villain is a sorceress anmed Junoon (played by Mouni Roy), whose idea of being scary is smirking, glaring, and ultimately being a very generic nemesis. Junoon’s thugs include hulking Raftaar (played by Saurav Gurjar) and manipulative Zor (played by Rouhallah Gazi), who do a lot of snarling, grunting and fighting.

If you’ve seen this type of sci-fi/fantasy movie many times, then you’ll find no real surprises in “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva,” which is an excruciating 167 minutes long. “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” is just more of the same derivative sci-fi/fantasy, but worse than the usual formulaic junk. This horrible, bloated movie is an assault on people’s intelligence. If you can avoid it, do not subject yourself to this aggravation.

Walt Disney Pictures released “Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva” in U.S. cinemas on September 9, 2022.

Review: ‘Chehre,’ starring Emraan Hashmi, Amitabh Bachchan, Annu Kapoor, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Rhea Chakraborty, Raghuvir Yadav and Krystle D’Souza

September 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Raghuvir Yadav, Emraan Hashmi, Siddhant Kapoor, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Annu Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan in “Chehre” (Photo courtesy of Anand Pandit Motion Pictures)

“Chehre”

Directed by Rumi Jaffery

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the dramatic film “Chehre” features an almost all-Indian cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: During a snowstorm, a traveling advertising executive finds himself stranded in a mansion with strangers who want to play a dangerous “mock courtroom trial” game with him.

Culture Audience: “Chehre” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in “trapped in the snow” mystery thrillers and don’t mind if the movie has ridiculous plot holes and takes too long to tell the story.

Rhea Chakraborty in “Chehre” (Photo courtesy of Anand Pandit Motion Pictures)

“Chehre” earnestly tries to be an intriguing mystery thriller, but the entire film buries a badly conceived plot in a steady pile-on of nonsense, just like the snowstorm that takes place during the movie. This snowstorm is the reason why the main characters are confined to a mansion, where a guest at the house is pressured into playing a game where he is the defendant in a mock trial. During this trial, secrets are revealed and not everyone might survive this game.

“Chehre” (which is the Hindi word for “faces”) is a little too long (139 minutes) and a little too bloated to sustain this flimsy story, which gets more ridiculous as time goes on. It’s not a boring film, but it seems as if the filmmakers became too enamored with adding in ludicrous complications, in order to stretch out the movie in unnecessary ways. Directed by Rumi Jaffery, who co-wrote the “Chehre” screenplay with Ranjit Kapoor, “Chehre” wants desperately to be a horror-inspired thriller, but it’s more like a soap opera than a scary movie.

You know you’re in store for a self-indulgent film when the opening credits scene features a nearly five-minute morality lecture from the movie’s most judgmental character: Lateef Zaidi (played by Amitabh Bachchan), who is sitting in a chair inside an empty room of a mansion. He is later revealed to be a criminal prosecutor. And he rambles on about how life is a series of judgments, karma and paying for sins. It telegraphs too early what happens later in the movie.

After hearing this pretentious speech, viewers then see a BMW driving on a deserted road somewhere in India during a snowstorm. The driver is an advertising executive in his early 40s named Sameer Mehra (played by Emraan Hashmi), who is lost and trying to find the road to Delhi. A turban-wearing older man is walking on the side of the road, so Sameer asks this stranger if he is on the road to Delhi. The man says no. And just like that, a tree suddenly falls right in front of the car, making it impossible for the car to pass the tree on the road

There’s no explanation for why Sameer is in this deserted part of India during a snowstorm. It’s all just a contrivance for what happens later in the story. The stranger comes to Sameer’s rescue and says the obvious: There’s no way the car can continue driving forward on the road because the tree is blocking the pathway. The stranger also says that he doesn’t know when officials will arrive to remove the tree.

Sameer is dismayed because he was on the way to an important business meeting, which he will probably no longer be able to attend. The stranger introduces himself as Paramjeet Singh Bhuller (played by Annu Kapoor), and he tells Sameer that luckily a friend of Paramjeet’s lives nearby and would be able to accommodate Sameer to stay there during the snowstorm until Sameer can get help. Sameer gladly accepts the offer. Sameer soon sees that there’s more than enough room to accommodate him because the house where he’ll be temporarily staying is a mansion.

The mansion’s owner/host Jagdhish Acharya (played by Dhritiman Chatterjee) is a retired judge. Also at the house are Lateef (the sanctimonious man seen in the movie’s opening credits) and an elderly man named Hariya Jatav (played by Raghuvir Yadav), who likes to play the flute. Lateef says he’s a chief prosecutor, while Paramjeet is a defense attorney. It’s revealed a little later that Hariya is retired and used to work in law enforcement in a very different capacity from the judge and lawyers.

There are two servants in the mansion: Anna (played by Rhea Chakraborty), a shy and attractive housekeeper/cook in her 20s, and Joe (played by Siddhant Kapoor), a brooding handyman in his 20s who is the “strong and silent” type. Sameer finds out that there’s no cell phone service during this storm. And the land line phone service isn’t available either.

And here’s the first red flag that Sameer should have noticed: He’s told that there’s no Internet service either, even if there hadn’t been a snowstorm. In other words, there’s no way that Sameer can immediately communicate with anyone outside of the mansion. Sameer is annoyed by this inconvenience, but he seems satisfied in knowing that at least he’ll be staying at a mansion with servants.

The BMW that Sameer is driving is owned by the advertising agency that employs him as the president/CEO. The agency is owned by a woman in her 30s named Mrs. Natasha Oswal (played by Krystle D’Souza), whose late husband founded the agency. Her much-older husband died a month earlier, and Sameer was promoted to the top executive position to replace the deceased founder. The movie has flashbacks to Sameer’s life in the year before he came to stay at this mansion.

As the men settle in the living room for some drinks, Sameer is told that it’s a tradition for guests in the house to play a game after they have dinner. Sameer doesn’t seem to care to hear about this game because he doesn’t think he’ll be at the mansion for very long. He’s about to find out the hard way how wrong he is about that.

The men ask Sameer about himself. Sameer tells them that he’s the president/CEO of a successful advertising agency, and he has a MBA degree. He is supposed to be in Delhi to meet with an important client to do a photo ad shoot for Butterfly Collections, which are trinket toys that look and move like real butterflies. Sameer has two of these butterfly trinkets that he gives to Anna, who giggles and expresses childlike delight and fascination with these butterflies.

Sameer also says that he’s happily married and has a 5-year-old son named Varan. Lateef notices that Sameer has a gold cigarette case inscribed with the words “With Love from N.O.” When Lateef is asked who “N.O.” is, Sameer says it’s just a friend. Sameer won’t say if it’s a male or female friend and quickly changes the subject.

After dinner, Sameer gets even more pressure to play the game that the other men say all the guests have to play. They explain the game is a mock courtroom trial where the guest is the defendant. Jagdhish will be the judge, Lateef will be the prosecutor, and Paramjeet will be the defense attorney.

The guest is allowed to choose the crime that the guest is “on trial” for, and Sameer is told that it’s to the guest/defendant’s advantage to be the one to make this choice. If not, the choice will be made for the “defendant” on what the crime will be. And it could be for a crime that might be hard to defend.

Sameer says he’s not interested. But then, Anna chimes in and says it would hurt the host’s feelings if Sameer didn’t play the game. Because he doesn’t want to appear rude, Sameer eventually gives in and says yes. However, Sameer says he won’t choose the “crime” for this “trial” because he’s a good person who hasn’t committed any crimes in real life.

Sameer is very smug and self-assured about how morally pure he is. A little too smug. And when someone sounds too perfect to be true, it’s usually a façade. The other men seem to already know it because when Sameer goes on “trial,” it’s revealed that Sameer isn’t as upstanding as he wants people to think he is.

One of the biggest flaws of “Chehre” is how easily Sameer exposes a lot of his secrets. There are hints that there might be supernatural forces at play in how Sameer ended up at this mansion, because it was all a set-up to trap Sameer. The men at the mansion seemed to have been able to have extraordinary control over the circumstances that led Sameer to that mansion in order to get him to play the “mock trial” game. However, the movie gives no real insight into how supernatural these “mock courtroom” men might or might not be.

The “trial” part of the movie isn’t very well-written because the defense attorney doesn’t even make any closing arguments. And the movie takes a very jumbled and convoluted route (with several flashbacks) to get to what’s obviously is going to happen. There are some very gimmicky “plot twists” that try to rewrite some of what was previously established in the story.

Most of the actors give adequate performances, with Hasmhi faring the best because his Sameer character ends up being the most complicated. Chakraborty has the least-impressive acting of the principal cast members. But maybe that’s because she doesn’t quite know how to authentically portray Anna, who is supposed to have mental health issues because of a past trauma. Unfortunately, “Chehre” has limited stereotypes for the women who have significant speaking roles in this movie: The women are either subservient or seductive in “Chehre.”

Because the movie goes on for too long, viewers might find their patience tested when it’s revealed about halfway through the movie that this is no ordinary game, and the men who instigated this game have sinister intentions. The movie’s visual effects aren’t very good. The secrets that are revealed are as cliché as you would imagine them to be. The only real suspense is in wanting to know how the movie will end. But because there are so many awful characters in “Chehre,” viewers will probably have emotionally checked out long before the movie’s underwhelming conclusion.

Anand Pandit Motion Pictures and Saraswati Entertainment Private Ltd. released “Chehre” in cineams in the U.S., India and several other countries on August 27, 2021.