Film Review: Talaash captures the right shade of Bombay noir

There’s a great scene in Talaash where the laconic Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) gets a phone call from a Times of India reporter, probing for details of the high-profile case he’s working on: the death of a Bollywood star in a mysterious accident on Mumbai’s Seaface Road. Shekhawat bangs the phone down in irritation, goes out and asks his staff who has good connections with the media, and promptly confiscates the cellphones of all those who put their hands up. Nothing about this case should get out in the public domain, he says sternly – not until the mystery is solved.

The scene could well be a nice little in-joke cracked by the film’s makers—substitute ‘case’ with ‘plot’ and you have before you the problem of reviewing Talaash. Reema Kagti’s second directorial outing (after 2007’s delightfully quirky Honeymoon Travels) is a film whose effect depends heavily on plot. And because I think you should all have the pleasure of that plot unfolding, slowly but surely, on screen as well as in your head, I am going to try and write the impossible: a review that tells you everything you need to know, but gives away nothing.

(Review continues)

Read the whole review here.