Blackmail (2018 film)


Blackmail is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language black comedy film co-produced and directed by Abhinay Deo. The film stars Irrfan Khan, Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh and Divya Dutta in lead roles and is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Apurba Sengupta and Rohit KaduDeshmukh under the banner of T-Series Films and RDP Motion Pictures. Blackmail depicts the life of a married-man in his late 30s stuck in a full day-time job and unexciting life but things turn after he finds that his wife is having an extramarital affair. The film had its theatrical release in India on 6 April 2018 and turned out to become a moderate box office success.

Plot

Dev Kaushal is a toilet paper sales executive who is leading a dispirited life both professionally and personally. He steals the photographs of other men's wives for his personal pleasure and gratification.
One day, to surprise his wife Reena Kaushal he arrives early from office with roses but instead finds his wife in bed with another man named Ranjit "Tommy" Arora. He imagines different scenarios, like killing the lover, then killing the wife, but leaves and decides to blackmail him.
Ranjit is a hen pecked husband married to Dolly Verma, who has an influential dad, who Ranjit is scared of. Dev shares a great bond with his Boss DK who asks him to promote the new toilet rolls. After calculating all the things he has to pay, Dev blackmails Ranjit for a sum of 1 lakh. Ranjit arranges the money from Dolly by lying of starting a business. When Dolly's father asks Ranjit to return the money, he blackmails Reena for 120,000. In a drunken state, Dev reveals everything to his colleague Anand. Reena asks Dev for money, saying that its for her dad's treatment. Dev gives her the money and in turn asks Ranjit for more money. Reena keeps the money in a dust bin which Ranjit collects and leaves it in a trash bin which Dev then collects.
Anand, who has a crush on Prabha Ghatpandey, a newly appointed colleague gets her on a date and unintentionally reveals Dev's plans. Next day Prabha blackmails Dev for money. Dev confronts Anand but then asks Ranjit for money, Ranjit in turn asks Reena for money and Reena asks Dev for the money. From the cash received earlier Dev transacts the amount to Reena's account, while Reena puts the money in a dustbin. Ranjit collects it, and throws it in a dustbin which Dev collects and gives to Prabha.
Ranjit gets fed up and hires a detective, Chawla. Prabha blackmails Dev for more money. Dev decides to meet Prabha and they share a heated argument in her apartment. Prabha slips during the argument and falls as an entire shelf falls on her, killing her. Suddenly Prabha's parents arrive. Dev manages to escape by wearing mask made out of a Paper bag and runs outside wearing only shorts while being chased by nearby residents.
Next morning following Prabha's death, police arrive and interrogates everyone in the office. Anand knowing that Dev met Prabha last night, blackmails Dev. On interrogation Dev reveals that Anand used to like Prabha. Dev convinces Anand to hide the truth from the police. Using Anand's car Dev purchases a similar paper bag he used last night to escape and hides it in Anand's car, following which the police arrest Anand. Anand panics and reveals everything about Dev to the police. Meanwhile, Chawla calls Dev telling him he knows about his ruse while Ranjit manages to get a gun to kill The Blackmailer.
The police then interrogates Dev about his blackmail activities. Dolly follows Ranjit and sees him together with Reena. Anand comes out of Police custody and tries to beat Dev but Dev manages to calm him down, claiming he has a master plan to gain money. Dev meets Chawla who asks for money to remain silent. At their home Dolly tries to kill Ranjit, but Ranjit manages to shoot her dead and hides her body in a Refrigerator. Dev asks Ranjit for money so that he can pay Chawla. In turn Ranjit asks Reena for money and Reena asks Dev for money claiming that its for her father's surgery. Dev calls Reena's parents and finds out that she is lying. He follows Reena, sees her selling her ornaments and puts the cash in the bin at a Mall. Dev goes to take it, but Ranjit comes over there and takes the money. Dev takes pictures of Ranjit taking the money. Ranjit hides the money in the dustbin and waits there to catch the blackmailer. Dev sees Ranjit watching and bribes a security guard to take the money. Ranjit follows him as Dev collects the money and gives it to Chawla. He asks Chawla for a favour, so he calls Ranjit and tells him the blackmailer is Anand. Ranjit kills Anand and Dev sends the pictures of Ranjit to Reena. Meanwhile, Dolly's parents find out that Ranjit murdered their daughter and lock him up in a bathroom and call the police.
Reena messages Dev asking when he will come home for dinner. A depressed Dev receives the message and deletes Reena's contact, while winning a computer game he always failed at, suggesting that he's ready to divorce Reena after all this madness.
Next morning, his boss DK sees that all his promotional tactics for his toilet paper has failed as some other company has taken over his company, which is implied to be Dev's as he is not at work. It is revealed that Dev married Reena 7 years ago and Reena fell asleep before her husband came to the room on their wedding night.

Cast

Development

The genesis of the film traces back to the year 2014 when Abhinay Deo had announced that his next film would be a dark comedy set in Mumbai. In January 2015, it was reported that Rakesh Roshan would be producing Abhinay Deo's next film which would have Irrfan Khan and Aditi Rao Hydari as the lead actors playing husband and wife. Kunal Kapoor, Kunaal Roy Kapur and Vijay Raaz were also signed on to be a part of the project and the shooting was supposed to begin at the end of February. In June 2015, it was reported that Rakesh Roshan had dropped the project that he was doing with Abhinay Deo citing creative differences. One year later in August 2016, Abhinay Deo informed that after he completes the work on Force 2, he plans to revive the film that he was supposed to do with Irrfan Khan before it got shelved. In November 2016, Abhinay Deo's film was given a working title of Blackmail and in February 2017 it was confirmed that T-Series had come on board to produce the film along with Co-Producer Rohit KaduDeshmukh. In April 2017, it was reported that the title of the film had been changed to Raita and Kirti Kulhari would be playing the role of Irrfan's wife in the film instead of Aditi Rao Hydari who was the first choice of the director. The principal photography of the film began on 4 April 2017 and the entire shoot was done in Mumbai itself. In December 2017, the film was officially renamed as Blackmail and it was announced that the film would have its theatrical release on 30 March 2018.

Promotion

After the special screening for Amitabh Bachchan on 31 March 2018, the makers organised another special screening on 2 April 2018 in the absence of lead actor Irrfan Khan for contemporary bollywood film directors, which was attended by Rajkumar Hirani, Amol Gupte, Nishikant Kamat, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Tanuja Chandra, Meghna Gulzar, Ravi Udyawar, Rensil D'Silva, Sudhir Mishra, Sriram Raghavan, Soumik Sen, Pradeep Sarkar, Mukesh Chhabra and others, to a positive response.

Soundtrack

The album is a compilation of six tracks, four of which were composed by Amit Trivedi while the other two songs were composed by the guest musicians Badshah and Guru Randhawa. The lyrics of the songs were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, Badshah, Guru Randhawa and Divine. The entire music album was officially released on 23 March 2018.
Guru Randhawa recreated his track Patola, originally composed by Preet Hundal.

Critical reception

gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 and said that, "It’s the film’s unique brand of humor – some of it pitch black and Coen-esque – that makes Blackmail worth your time, despite its shortcomings." Sweta Kausal of Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 and said that Blackmail is a "Fun filled and realistic story-telling made interesting with engaging and hilarious performances of Irrfan Khan and Divya Dutta". Rachit Gupta of The Times of India gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 saying that, "The plot of Blackmail is its hero and it manages to strike a good balance between dark and funny. This is one of the most wickedly funny films that we’ve seen in a long time." Raja Sen of NDTV gave the film a rating of 1.5 out of 5 and said that, "Irrfan is incapable of giving a bad performance but Abhinay Deo's farce is too tacky and poorly-conceived to do Khan justice". Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5 and said that, "The Irrfan Khan starrer begins promisingly but descends pretty quickly into flatness and sluggishness, a classic problem of not knowing quite how to play out a perky idea."