I find it quite perplexing that the majority of suspense thrillers take the shape of whodunits before adding scary components. Even the spooks are confined to jump scares, dim illumination, shadowy figures, a lantern on the floor, and a piano that plays by itself. I’m talking about the true horror films at the time, Band Darwaza (1990) and Veerana (1988). Nothing novel is offered by Gaslight. If anything, it makes you uneasy and smile in spots where you think someone was trying to terrify you. The movie’s main premise isn’t all that horrible, but the execution and the first 15 minutes, which are completely predictable, destroy the whole thing.
Gaslight Movie Review: The film stars Chitrangada Sen, Sara Ali Khan and Vikrant Massey.
Whodunits and murder mysteries are my personal favorites, but they need to be well-written and skillfully filmed. You can’t expect the audience to watch such a terrible movie for two hours. While director Pawan Kripalani had previously given us fantastic thrillers like Phobia and Ragini MMS starring Radhika Apte, Gaslight astonished me even more. Although Gaslight undervalues the audience’s intelligence by expecting them to solve the riddle when there isn’t actually one, I agree that it will be challenging to match the level. Well, the final 20 minutes and the climax bring the movie back to life, but it’s too late. Not to mention that getting to that height requires 1.5 hours of sitting.
The movie opens with Misha (Sara Ali Khan), who is confined to a wheelchair, going back to her royal house after more than ten years to see her father, His Highness Ratan (Shataf Ahmed Figar). He never once seen or even heard his father’s voice during this time. He is greeted upon returning home by his stepmother Rukmani (Chitrangada Singh) and a number of the estate’s staff, who only show up when it is required to forward the plot. The estate manager Kapil (Vikrant Massey), a high-ranking police officer named Ashok (Rahul Dev), the family physician Shekhawat (Shishir Sharma), Misha’s wealthy cousin Rana Jai Singh (Akshay Oberoi), and a dog by the name of Commander are also there.Everyone becomes suspected of killing People at some point, but I knew it was coming a long time ago. Most of you would be, I’m sure. Meesha feels that something is wrong and that her father may be missing or has passed away, despite Rukmani’s insistence that Ratan is away on a business trip. With the aid of Kapil, she makes an effort to learn the reality and uncover the cause of the problem.
All of this might have been done and displayed quite cleverly, but sadly, Kripalani doesn’t seem to make much of an effort to grab our attention. Gaslight employs dead-to-death clichés to frighten you or create a murder mystery, but nothing can keep you from falling apart. Where it intensifies the already dismal scenes, Rahul Dharuman’s cinematography is problematic.
The narrative, which was co-written by Kriplani and Neha Veena Sharma, had so much potential, but I was unable to spot a time when it was used to produce a moment that was intensely compelling. Twists appear and disappear with little comment. Also, a few scenes of unnecessary blood and gore don’t have much of an effect. Other from that, everything else about Misha is supposed to be taken at face value. It is claimed that she lost her mother to suicide and later meets with an accident. Meesha’s animosity toward her father, Rukmani’s presence in the family, and how everything went apart are all explained through a flimsy back story that hardly passes muster.
Although there are no side stories, which may or may not be a good thing, the main goal of the story is discovering what happened to Ratan. A furious argument between Rana and Rukmani occurs in the meantime, and although you were hoping for a little more of it, it vanishes without providing much context. In the interim, a blind woman in all-black trying to inform Misha that her father has passed away and that she will contact him at midnight looks hilarious as hell rather than menacing. I was shocked during the entire sequence. The year is 2023, and scenes like this are being presented in the ominous guise of a cheesy joke.
Sara Ali Khan has a lot of acting ability, but she needs to create roles that are bigger and more significant for her. Gaslight gives him room to shine, but only beyond a face that is essentially constant the entire time. She makes an excessive amount of effort to impress, but eventually you start to feel sorry for her. Famous for his powerful performance, Vikrant Massey also perishes by hanging. He appears to be carrying a lot of the burden throughout the movie, but he isn’t given many chances.One of the best written characters in the first half is Chitrangada Singh, but it’s frustrating how her story loses momentum in the second half. She used to be a strong, self-assured woman, so the change from that to vulnerability seems so unbelievable. Although they may have more developed roles to perform, some characters like Oberoi, Sharma, and Dev are solely employed as props.
Try watching Gaslight if you want to spend two hours of your day investigating a murder mystery and congratulate yourself on getting it right the first time. If you enjoy Sara and Vikrant as performers, you should feel bad for them because this is undoubtedly not one of their best showings—or at the very least, the story doesn’t allow them to shine. Disney+ Hotstar is currently streaming Gaslight.