‘Ittefaq’ Review: Well-Paced but Not So Edge-of-the-Seat After All

Still from the film

(Photo: Twitter/@S1dharthM)

A double murder, two prime suspects, a shrewd investigating officer and the truth about the crime – all this is what Ittefaq tries to pack into its 107-minute runtime. Based on the 1969 Rajesh Khanna starrer by the same name, this latest installment might have a similar skeletal structure but has more plot twists to its credit.

Also, for those who have seen the original, the narrative trajectory isn’t spectacularly new.

Sidharth Malhotra plays a UK-based writer, Vikram Sethi, whose life turns stranger than fiction as he becomes embroiled in not one but two murders. The first half is spent showing us the various accounts and possibilities. One thread shows Siddharth as totally innocent and the other points the finger of suspicion beyond reasonable doubt at him. Sonakshi Sinha plays the wife of a murdered lawyer who wants Vikram to be charged but its up to Dev, the investigating officer (Akshaye Khanna), to separate the grain from the chaff.

While Ittefaq is nowhere close to a spectacular suspense thriller it set out to be, it nevertheless is taut and well paced.

Director Abhay Chopra approaches the tale with a chilling efficiency giving us a heightened sense of intrigue and tension. Also, Akshaye Khanna as the cop in charge of solving the murder mystery is pitch perfect. While Siddharth and Sonakshi follow their brief and try to act as “innocent” as possible, Akshaye Khanna’s knit brows and crooked smile make us invest in the story and try and decode the murderer and his motives!

Ittefaq is fairly focused in its storytelling, which works in its favour. I give it a generous 3 QUINTS out of 5.

But the lack of a truly dramatic suspense element dampens the overall effect. Go for it with your expectations in check and you won’t totally regret it!

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