Raat Baaki Hai

Review By Kamal K

Zee5 brings yet another murder mystery where a leading bollywood actress is found dead on her engagement night. Police officer incharge need to solve this case within a night as he doesn't want the matter to get escalated.

Overall, this story seems good and sounds interesting on paper but when it translated on celluloid it goes astray. The movie does opens up in a promising note and the suspense is well maintained where you start your guessing game on. Sooner it fizzles down as you can guess the killer from miles apart. After which you could just wait to prove yourself right.

Rahul Dev is impressive as the no-nonsense cop Ahlawat whose character has shades of grey from the beginning, and yet, he leaves no stone upturned to find the truth. Annup Soni convincingly depicted the anxiousness his character goes through. Paoli Dam is looking elegantand she makes her presence felt as Vasuki. Instead of just focusing on her appearance and that perfectly draped saree, the film would have worked remarkably better had it delved deeper into Dam's character.

The climax has some unpredictable bends in the road which are interesting to watch. Overall, this 89 minutes suspense-thriller is quite unexciting and a dull watch.

Adapted from a popular play called "Ballygunge 1990" directed by Atul Satya Koushik, Raat Baaki Hai is the tale of one fateful night in the lives of Vasuki (Paoli Dam) and Kartik (Anup Soni), two estranged lovers who happen to meet by chance after a gap of 12 years. Kartik and Vani (Dipannita Sharma), a top actress get engaged the same night at a plush hotel in Rajasthan and the former is too heavily drunk to carry himself through the night. Unfortunately, the bride to be is soon found murdered with the throat slit apart in her suite. Inspector Rajesh Ahlawat (Rahul Dev) begins his investigation and gradually gets to work out the progress of the crime, only until a point where the CCTV camera footage goes missing.

In the interim, Kartik is on the run realising the gravitas of the situation and lands up in Vasuki's mansion, as if by chance. She claims that she is happily married to Raja Sujan Singh, the owner of the mansion and the hotel for the past 12 years since separating from Kartik. She makes Kartik comfortable and asks him to wait for the Raja to return to rid him of his immediate problem. As the night proceeds, matters get a little complicated as beans are spilled and Kartik is in for some strange surprise.

Raat Baaki Hai is languid, low key and short (89 minutes). It could have been taut and slick, but fails in execution as the ending is somewhat underwhelming although unpredictable. Paoli Dam is effective, but doesn't find too much support from the others. The settings are plush and rich and the proceedings are palpable.

Very predictable story line with not so much uniqueness to the plot. This isn't a bad film. Probably bit better than some of the craps out there on OTT.

For the first half hour, it was tedious to sit as the movie was too slow. Some pace to the movie could have brought a difference. Characters seems half baked and even in an predictable script, the right execution could have made the difference. Dialogues were good.

Basically, this isn't a very bad movie. Intent was there to make it a good film but somehow the execution failed.

Rahul dev was my pick from the movie, but his character lacks depth. Anup Soni was okay. Rest of the cast was average. None of them able to leave strong impression.

Its good to see Paoli in lead role. She done well. Actually all the character done well. Story also good.

Just from the synopsis of the movie, its easy to identify who the killer is.

Anup Soni and Paoli Dam are good.