
Detective Byomkesh Bakshi – an eye-opener

An Indian crime thriller screened worldwide simultaneously, is what the newspapers say about Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. Directed by Dibakar Banerjee and produced by Banerjee and Aditya Chopra with distribution under the Yash Raj Films banner, the film has Sushant Singh Rajput, Anand Tiwari and Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee in the main roles in the film, with Sushant Singh playing Detective Bakshy.
The film released all over on April 3rd, 2015. The period film, close to two and half hours, it was instantly followed by positive reviews and grossed heavily as a successful venture.
What is the film about?
In the backdrop of World war II, in 1942 in British ruled India, there were two rival gangs that existed at the Calcutta Docks, When a

The making of the film

The Pains for the Gains
But beyond this came the sets which had to look original, dating back to the 1940s, costumes, hair styles, mannerisms, speech and

There had been workshops held at regular intervals throughout for the selected cast to rigorously imbibe all that it could to portray real-life characters of that time, Manish Malhotra was roped in for the costume for Detective Bakshi while the sets were designed by Vandana Kataria to almost flawless execution. Trams and vintage cars, notable features of that age, have been filmed brilliantly while VFX technology has been used to bring back the charm of the 40’s. Shooting has been mostly in Kolkata and Mumbai. Though the shooting of the film took less than six months continuous from Jan to mid May in 2014, the planning and getting ready for location shoots started way back in 2012.

Interestingly, marketing started with the letter ‘Y’ instead of ‘I’ for Byomkesh Bakshi, the original name of the fictional detective since notionally ‘I’ seemed small and insignificant ending to a powerful start of the name whereas ‘Y’ gave it an appropriate and noticeable finish. There have been promos with popular whodunit TV serials like CID, fun shows like Comedy Nights with Kapil, There is a mobile game available on Google Play Store by the same name, a fashion line of contemporary clothing displayed in Amazon India Fashion Week, held in New Delhi on March 26th this year related to the same cause showcased the costumes used.
What the critics said
The media is what people in public glare fear and favour the most. For it is the pen, that is mightier than the sword in current times. Good ratings of 4 out of 5 have come for varied reasons from attention to detail, the sustained interest throughout the film,

But none truly said so far that it was not worth the time spent on it, with tags ranging from ‘novel and enterprising’ to ‘fantastic, realistic portrayal of an age’.
What the audiences said in the first week itself
Ultimately it is what the audience says that counts. If the first week’s cash registers are an indication, it has been a phenomenal success. Reports put it as a collection of Rs.4.4 crores from international markets in the first three days. In India, in the first week, it grossed close to 20 crores.
Books have been written earlier, there have been a couple of television serials in Bangla and the Hindi one where Rajit Kapur plays Bakshi in the limited space of the ‘idiot box’ but it is quite another thing to see the magic of the young Detective Byomkesh Bakshy and his crime-solving in a much larger and preferred setting.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG--GOpi_0g?wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360]
We need do nothing more. Just to take the earliest opportunity to make our way to a good theatre and see it for ourselves. I am sure some of us may even get to thinking like him after watching the movie.