Footfairy (& TV)
Starring Gulshan Devaiah, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Sarika Ghatge
Directed by Kaniskh Verma
Why does the serial killer, nicknamed Footfairy, like to cut off his female victims’ feet after murdering them? Maybe he then finds it easier to stuff their bodies into the suitcases before dumping them in abandoned places? Or maybe he just doesn’t like them (women’s feet) or likes them way more than normal.
Does he have a collection of feet in his home displayed on the shelf with the appropriate dates to brag about with his children? Meena Kumar in Pakeezah had Raj Kumar writing poetry about her feet. What to say about a serial killer’s feet-rat(nature) when till the end, we are not told who the killer was? That’s right. This film opts for an ‘open’ ending.
And yet despite its odd propensity to not take sides and to leave the killer’s identity unrevealed Footfairy is a moderately watchable serial-killer yarn with the natural Gulshan Devaiah cast as Vivan Deshmukh a CBI investigator on the trail of a nasty serial killer with a feet fetish.
At one point while strolling with her boyfriend Gulshan Devaiah, Sarika Ghatge reveals how women are so scared of the serial killer on the prowl that they wear only sneakers while commuting. We don’t notice any of this fear clouding the city. The narrative built around an tightly-corseted cat-and-mouse game between the killer and the investigative officer, has no time to develop the characters or to even give them a chance to be anything but aloof props.
There is this young sweet girl, Vivan’s neighbor whom he is fond of in a paternal way. We want to know more about their friendship. But finally we are left with just vague brush-strokes of hints and suggestions. Finally like most female characters in our cinema, she is just a victim.
Apart from Gulshan Devaiah and Kunaal Roy Kapur (who joins the plot mid-way) every supporting actor believes in playing acting-acting relentlessly. They deliver their dialogues as though they are reading from a teleprinter while the serial killer continues to not just a break a leg but also dismember the proprietor of the leg. RIP.
