Kaisi Yeh Paheli movie review: Sukant Goel, Sadhana Singh film comes off as amateurish

The film is set in Kalimpong, which makes it fresh, even if the genre of a hill-station murder mystery has been overused in the past few years. Uttam (Sukant Goel) and his colleagues, senior (Chittaranjan Giri) and junior (Rahul Nawach Mukhia) are up to their ears with the investigation, and getting nowhere.

Desperate, the boss suggests that Uttam gets his detective-story-swilling mother (Sadhana Singh) into the picture: maybe she can go where none of them are able to?

There are a couple of interesting elements in here, chief of them being the strained mother-son relationship, which spirals after the death of the father. Uttam blames his mother and stays as far away from her as he can; the more he withdraws, the needier she gets. The other is the way she gets into the skin of the sleuth, nudging and poking gently, even as an annoying expert (Rajit Kapur) from Kolkata fetches up, telling people what to do.

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Kapur‘s presence is meant to be a highlight, with the actor returning to the detective genre after his 1993 Byomkesh Bakshi, but after that delightful series, and a few initial films, he slipped into mannered familiarity. It’s the same here.

The discovery of the cause of the killing– the victim was poisoned– and the subsequent disappearance of a cop, should have stirred the broth, but the film comes off amateurish. The red herrings are weak. And the big reveal isn’t one at all: sharp-eyed viewers will spot the killer a mile off.

Kaisi Yeh Paheli movie cast: Sukant Goel, Sadhana Singh, Rajit Kapur, Chittaranjan Giri, Rahul Nawach Mukhia, Nishu Dixit
Kaisi Yeh Paheli movie director: Ananyabrata Chakravorty
Kaisi Yeh Paheli movie rating: One and a half stars