Anjali MathurSTORY: Sometimes things can take unexpected turns. Married for over four years, Manish (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and Richa (Priya Anand) are hard-pressed for money and waiting for his start-up ambitions to take off. As things begin to crystalize, Manish ends up murdering the wrong woman for a hit he wasn’t even hired for. How do they evade justice, if at all? Here is our take on ‘A SIMPLE MURDER ‘
Watch it in: Sony Liv
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Let us dig into the A SIMPLE MURDER REVIEW
REVIEW: An opposing couple, Richa is a revealingly fashionable women who like to wear plunging neckline tops to work and dreams to sleep on a ‘paison ka bistar’, on the other hand, is her husband Manish who is dwindling at home, waiting for his million-dollar idea to attract a wealthy investor. At the moment, he is just pilfering money from her handbag while his products float away on clogged water.
“Tu kisi kaam ka nahin hai,” Richa exclaims, livid. Soon after this introductory episode, Manish finds that one fabulous idea he has been looking for years- a potential business partner. But a huge mix-up means he shows up at the wrong office, and to do a job he doesn’t have the heart for.
‘A Simple Murder’ has a drum-roll-worthy commencement but its brilliance is lost pretty early on owing to the haphazard direction and a feeble script. The irony is, that the promo says it’s a comedy of errors but except for a few condom-packet jokes and that one ‘cheque nahin, Czech Republic’ punchline, the entire series just seems like an earnest attempt to connect the dots while still trying to stay funny along the way.
Of course, the actors ease the pain with their earnest attempts at conjuring up something entertaining with what they had at their disposal, but good acting sans a solid plotline and crisp direction of random work. Do they? And to add insult to injury, S. Bharathwaaj’s cinematography tanks – flat-out lazy, underwhelming and there’s no nicer way of saying it.
A SIMPLE MURDER REVIEW: Character hates the world for his own shortcomings
Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub’s this Dilli-ka-macho-launda – spewing gaalis and burning with envy over his wife’s growing proximity with her affluent boss (Ayaz Khan). That character hates the world for his own shortcomings, and Zeeshan as Manish is hilariously delusional and a natural at that.
‘English Vinglish’ girl Priya Anand is a greedy, over-ambitious woman stuck with the wrong men and the actress has no problem in portraying a morally-bankrupt person and staying in sync with the energy of the male lead. Sushant Singh is highly animated as kill-on-cue Himmat and although his sing-song diction is initially endearing, it gets borderline annoying after the first few episodes. Not his fault though.
Nothing’s simple about ‘A Simple Murder’ and if that was the intent, it has landed miles away from where it was supposed to.
Aditi Agrawal
Baishaly Roy
