Te3n: A slow gripper

Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vidya Balan

Rated: 7/10

To state anything more than the fact that this film is a thrilling, gripping murder mystery would be a dead giveaway. But the beauty of Te3n is that despite having Amitabh Bachchan as the main character, it is not just about him.

 It is a film that stands tall on its edgy no-nonsense script and director Ribhu Dasgupta’s ability to hold on to the main thread despite an unusual and slow descent into a long-winded probe through known and surprising quarters.

Of course, AB is the central character of the film, having lost his grand-daughter to a ruthless kidnapper and makes a feat out of looking old, haggard, unkempt and doggedly determined to get the man despite eight years having passed after he loses Angela.

Amitabh’s towering histrionics need no elucidation so it is his co-stars Nawazuddin, the cop-turned-priest, and on duty policewoman Vidya Balan who can be discussed.

Nawazuddin, fighting his own ghosts as a police inspector and a kidnappings specialist, plays it out well though Vidya Balan’s is unfleshed and uptight in her role as a policewoman who is onto another but similar case of kidnapping.

But really, it’s not so much the actors as the film itself that grips you despite being slow to unfold. The clues left here and there, the running around false hopes and the chicanery of the faceless kidnapper, the what’s-next excitement — everything in the film, based out of Kolkata, its smoky lanes and abandoned stretches on the outskirts, keeps you on the seat, all attention on the screen.

Writer Suresh Nair’s screenplay  makes sure that this does not plummet into just any run of the mill thriller. Having moulded Kahani in 2012 and Akshay Kumar’s recent Airlift to name a few, this one was up his sleeve and he does justice to the film. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 12 June, 2016