The master of suspense is back

Film: Udgharsha

Rating: 4/5

Language: Kannada/Telugu (A)

Cast: Thakur Anoop Singh, Sai Dhanshika, Tanya Hope, Kabir Duhan Singh, Kishore, Shraddha Das, Harshika Poonacha, Prabhakar, Vamshi Krishna, Shravan Raghavendra, Manjunath.D, Gym Ravi and Manjunath Jambe

Director: Sunil Kumar Desai

With his latest flick Udgharsha, Sunil Kumar Desai once again proves why he is the master of suspense thrillers in Sandalwood.

The riveting and non-linear murder mystery, unfolding in a span of 48 hours, proves to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. This flick about a revenge murder on the New Year's eve and circumstances that surround it establish how proficient Desai is in in crafting a thriller.

With his brilliant way of narrating a murder mystery, Desai keeps the audience highly engaged for all 130 minutes of the movie. Twists and turns unfold as soon as the movie begins.

Almost every scene in the movie keeps the audience on tenterhooks, even as the film moves fast. There are no songs in an effort to maintain the tone of the film. Much of the story is conveyed through emotions, feelings and gestures, with a very restrained use of dialogue.

Although this doesn't mean that Udgharsha is flawless. Action sequences are a too elaborate, while scenes of bloodshed and violence could have been cut down, and could have relied more on implication.

Desai seems to have roped in popular artistes from Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam movies with an intention of appealing to the South India audience. Considering the commercial elements, such a cast is needed for a multilingual movie. This, however, may lead to a sense of alienation for the Kannada audience as they may fail to connect with some artistes.

Lack of synchronisation in the audio track is glaring in some scenes.

Desai doesn't seem to have gotten over dressing his characters up in clothes from suspense thrillers from the 1980s. It looks odd to see people in trends from two decades ago while many scenes are from our own times.

Thakur Anoop Singh, Sai Dhanshika, Tanya Hope, Kabir Duhan Singh, Kishore, Harshika Poonacha and Prabhakar have done justice to their roles.

Singh is a treat to watch, but he fails to express himself in emotional scenes.

Background score by Sanjoy Chowdhary supports the narration and mood of the film, while K M Vishnuvardhan's cinematography deserves special mention.

Desai had promised a good suspense thriller with the perfect trappings. He mostly on delivers what he had assured.