Bypass Road

This movie is written by Neil Nitin Mukesh. The reason this is important is because if someone follow his movie choices and his interviews you will know that he wants to make good art and thriller almost to the point of being obsessed about it. In his earlier interviews(2010-2011) he used to say that the worst films are the biggest earners and he wants to do intelligent and different movies. He followed this path till 2013(with attempts like Johnny Gaddar, Aa dekhen zaraa, 3G, Shortcut Romeo) and then deviated to movies like Prem Ratan, Saaho, Golmaal Again and south Indian movies(Katthi, Kavaccham) which seemed like(to me) that he gave up on his obsession due to lack of Box office validation and Unsatisfactory scripts. The reason I say all this is because this movie seems like NNM's comeback to the thriller genre and actually the kind of movie he would have visualised to be a part of but were never made.

Okay, coming to the movie, the sequences are stylish. Every sequence, the characters, scenes, the background music shows that it's a well thought out movie. The sequences separately is never boring and acting performances are good and believable. This is Neil's best acting performance till date and has a lot to do in this film. The story is intelligent and doesn't have any loopholes or trickeries as such. Overall it is an intelligent story and a interesting execution in terms of the craft.

The sequence is different and not straightforward, moving back and forth between the present and past. The only problem(if I can say so) is that you atleast need to see the movie 3 times to understand what a intelligent movie it is in terms of the story, and be able to join the dots together and get closure. The reason I feel this is a problem, is because important clues and information are sometimes passed by inconsequential characters(for e.g the cyber security guy of the police) who are hard to pay attention to. You may forget what happened in the previous past sequence when you reach to the next sequence relating to the past(as there is too much going on and no hook) Information, or thinking process are not repeated by people(may be in brainstorming sequence) and everything is just someone said something or something happened once and you have to remember all these details(which is hard to do in the first watch). As a result you might feel cheated or fooled in the first watch as you might not be able to connect the dots . But having watched it 3 times there is a connection between every suspense revealed in the movie.

I think this movie came about in an intellectual way, and it would have made sense to the writer who knows the story before hand, but hard for someone to grasp everything who is listening to the story and there is no single thread that people can relate to at the end. There are simply too many threads. This fails to create the required aha moment and the emotional closure at the end(which would have made the movie brilliant) but you can still get that feeling once you watch it for the 2nd or 3rd time.(And it is pretty watchable due to the stylish and entertaining sequences).

The reason I am excited by this movie, is because of the possibility of how good this could have been if the recall factor was a bit more when we reach to the end and how intellectually stimulating it would have been. Hopefully, NNM write more such scripts and also add the elements which would easier for the first time viewer, keeping intact the interesting and brain stimualting story.