Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee’s films always very accurately adapt to the local mannerism of the place where the story is set. If he showed Delhi’s brashness in ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’, and pre-independent Kolkata’s mystic charm in “Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, in his latest ‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ he highlights the gullibility and warm heart of hilly towns like Pithoragarh.The film’s plot begins in Gurgaon, but eventually shifts to Pithoragarh where young men are enamoured by cops who claim to have met Salman Khan, and the older ones think its their business to school women(any woman) about their role in society.The film begins with an encounter killing at a checkpoint in the outskirts of Delhi. Cops soon realise they got the wrong car, while their actual targets Sandeep (Parineeti Chopra) and Pinky ( Arjun Kapoor) are absconding. Pinky, suspended for a year from his job in the Haryana Police, takes up the task to kidnap Sandeep, a top executive of a private bank. Pinky’s mentor, Tyagi (Jaideep Ahlawat) promises him back his job provided he does this one last job- to kidnap and kill Sandeep, who now poses as a threat to her bank as she knows the inside details of a major financial fraud.The two start off on a rough patch but eventually form an uncanny bond and decide to cross the border and find refuge in Nepal. They land in the hilly town of Pithoragarh, take refuge in a gullible, warm elderly couple’s (Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta in top form) home and plan their move to Nepal while, the bank, the police try tracing their whereabouts.While the film starts of as an intriguing story, the narrative isn’t able to keep the pace intact making it vague, incoherent in portions with barely any suspense around. The film breaks for an interval at an obscure moment, making the viewer wonder if there is anything at all to look forward to in the second half. Sketchy in parts, the film shines most in the scenes that involve Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta who play the elderly couple who give Sandeep and Pinky refuge in their home. Yadav plays an orthodox man seeped in patriarchy who doesn’t bat an eyelid before questioning Sandeep and her ways. Gupta plays the gullible, softy who has to manage an authoritarian husband in front of strangers.One of the best scenes in the film has Yadav instructing Chopra to offer pickle around the breakfast table and admonishing her knowledge of the share market, only to be shut down by her knowledge on share trading.Banerjee also, much like his other films, manages to get relatively unknown faces to play locals in the film, who add authenticity to the plot.The story may be well-intended but it falters at the execution level. At two hours run time, the film appears to stretch, there are plot points that do not make sense and scenes which are unnecessarily long and tend to zoom more on the actor’s faces.Parineeti Chopra, who has off late chosen some bad scripts, get its right in this film. She delivers a restraint performance- a far cry from her melodramatic act in ‘The Girl On The Train’. Arjun Kapoor on the other hand has a straight pan expression throughout. I wish he had emoted a bit more in a film that relies more on facial expressions than dialogues.‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ was in the making for a long time and in several parts, it seems that the makers rushed a bit to wrap it up and release it. For a maker like Dibakar Banerjee who has delivered memorable films in the past, this is not his best.
