Abar Byomkesh

I am an avid Byomkesh fan. Thus the second offering of Anjan Dutta was eagerly awaited.In this sequel, Aabir Chatterjee had improved his performance to the extent of being closely identified with Saradindu Chatterjee's hero. The film is excellent in presentation, technical details and acting. The choice of locale was perfect. But film does suffer from a few shortcomings ,which are as follows:
(a)Why the suspicion fell upon the Bank Manager? The original story gives sufficient reasons; therefore these should have been explained in the end.
(b)It would have been better to show Falguni's dead body in the "well" as in the story.Killing him with a blow, consequent blood shed and the risk of carrying his body to the bridge would have been risky and certainly would have been probed by the police.
(c)The story of doctor's marriage to the widow had been very cursorily dealt with and merited better treatment.
(d)Through out the film the police appeared to act like a bystander to the extent of playing second fiddle to Byomkesh in final sequence.
(e)The climax was badly scripted and shoddily handled. The director should have been faithful to the story. There are far too many gaps.
Overall the film is watchable only due to Byomkesh factor and technical excellence.

Here comes the second instalment of Anjan Dutta’s interpretation of Bengali (and Indian) literature’s most famous detective Byomkesh Bakshi. This follows on from 2010’s excellent ‘Bomkesh Bakshi’ film (based on the ''Adim Ripu'' story by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay). Although predominantly successful through the books and various TV serial adaptations, the first instalment starring Abir Chatterjee turned out to be both a critical and box office hit; the first cinema version to achieve this since Satyajit Ray’s ‘Chiriakhana’ in the late 60s. ‘Abar Byomkesh’ is entertaining but not as good as the first stronger instalment. Both leads give good performances and the plot keeps you interested throughout but there are some gaps in the storyline. This sequel could’ve easily gone the other way but thankfully Anjan Dutt has just about pulled it off a second time; this hopefully means the planned third instalment will get made. The DVD is released by a different company (Dhoom Video) to the first instalment and includes English subtitles (ensuring it a wider Indian and probably international audience interested in the ‘Indian Sherlock Holmes’), unlike its predecessor which strangely didn’t have any subtitles included. Probably a 3.5 stars film rather than the full 4- but Flipkart doesn't allow half points... A decent mystery film despite the plot shortcomings- buy it!