Saptadingar Guptodhon (Bengali)
Starring Abir Chatterjee, Ishaa Saha, Arjun Chakrabarty, and Kaushik Ganguly.
Directed by Dhrubo Banerjee
The fourth part of the beloved Guptodhon franchise retains its original flavour and renewable relevance. Though the plot suggests unplumbed sinisterness, nobody comes to any real harm. Perhaps only one person dies in the entire film, and he, poor soul, has to die only to take the plot forward.
This is the magic of a true-blue treasure hunt. It is basic and fairytale-like. And warmly welcomed for its eschewal of gore.
Abir Chatterjee, one of Bengali cinema’s reigning stars and a fine actor to boot, pitches in a toned-down performance freed of the physical hijinks that characterize screen heroes in our cinema, especially those who are modelled on Indiana Jones and his Temple of Doom.
Watch the bloated trailer of Welcome To The Jungle, then watch this film. You will know the difference.
There is no doom, but a lot of dhoom in Saptadingar Guptodhon as Abir’s Sonada and his two eager-eyed assistants Abir (Arjun Chakravarty, too eager to act) and Jhinuk (Isha Sahaa) lend their own vivacity to the ingenuous proceedings.
Saptadingar Guptodhon is well paced and pleasing to the eye. Director Dhrubo Banerjee keeps a loose-limbed grip over the proceedings. At times, the narrative feels too freewheeling, like a kite in flight. Perhaps a more tightly-wound screenplay would have given the audience more reason to stay glued to the goings-on.
The goons and villains never seem capable of any real harm. One of them keeps brandishing a razor-knife like a substitute for the Rubik’s Cube. Such characters feel more like props than people. The archvillain Dashanan Daw (Rajatava Dutta) is by now a regular in the Franchise. He brings his trademark idiosyncratic laughter to the jungles with a heartfelt joy that spreads across the jungles… not exactly like a wildfire, but with a quickening, quirky momentum that is appealing to the audience as long as expectations are limited.
The plot is a treasure hunt in the purest sense. The Sundarbans locations could have been better used to create more mystery and romance than obtainable in this worthy, though not outstanding, extension of a franchise that refuses to age.
