My Wife's Murder: the review

If you haven't already seen this movie, I recommend it.

My Wife's Murder has the familiar characteristics of a RGV factory product. It is short, it is songless, it is different. Only this time, it is different in a good
sense.

The biggest plus of the movie is its utter believability. Anil Kapoor's character is really the man next door, making human errors only a genuinely honest person who is unable to come up with evil plans would make. There are no unnecessary thrills, no right-upto-the-second coincidences, no luck, no unnecessary complications and twists to the story. Whatever could go wrong does. Whatever that can seem as an attempt to infuse melodramatic ill-luck or quirks of fate doesn't happen. One is left wondering why his character keeps doing what he does, as the right thing is very obvious to the audience. But given the circumstances, what an ordinary well-wishing person would do is depicted quite naturally and accurately in the movie. The emotional side of the character always dominates his decision-making, not logical practicality that is often required.

Performances are very good, but I would give more credit to the script-writer for writing an honest and "different" script, and more importantly to the director for an effective execution without inserting melodrama and artificially constructed nailbiters that are often a hallmark of most thrillers. It is interesting how Anil Kapoor's character starts with making a consistent, apparently watertight story, and how his gradual panic and guilt leads him to lying more and more obviously. The movie is different because the director focusses on keeping the characters believable rather than making the movie a joy ride for thriller-enjoying moviegoers. This is one reason why thriller-loving audiences may be a little disappointed with this movie. But it is always encouraging to see a believable Hindi movie.

Anil Kapoor--what can I say? An honest performer who performs honestly once again :-). You cannot help feel bad for the guy inspite of all his errors and
wrong decisions, and the credit for that goes to Anil Kapoor. As the peace-loving confrontation-avoiding husband, the honest man who tries his best to hide but ends up bungling all come through nicely through his acting. Even in the last scene where he panics and keeps making stupid mistakes, his total focus on his children and their well-being can be seen. Boman Irani is the typical detective one would see in
a TV detective serial--calm, unassuming, focussed but human. His job is to appear as the normal, unaggressive cop who nudges his suspects to blurt out the truth. I liked the subtle way the director showed his human side by showing his family problems, which make him the understanding cop that he turns out to be. Again, an unspiced portrayal by the director, instead of going for the suspecting, oversmart and robotic cop in many other movies.

Overall, a good movie certainly worth a watch. Of all the movies that are claimed to have given an "alag" treatment, this one genuinely has been.