Character is being played by Sushant Singh Rajput.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: The latest trend of Bollywood seems to be an obsession with thrillers, which has a detective or a private eye as its lead.
Last month, we saw the release of Samrat & Co. a detective thriller starring Rajeev Khandelwal as the titular private eye. Samrat & Co., directed by Kaushik Ghatak, received mixed to negative reviews by both critics and audiences. Most criticized Khandelwal’s attempt to copy Benedict Cumberbatch’s act in the BBC series Sherlock.
Dibakar Banerjee’s next film, Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, is a simple but thrilling origin story of the famous detective character from Bengali literature.
The character of Byomkesh Bakshi was created by writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay in the 1940s. The stories featuring this detective are all set in the 1940s or 1950s. The film too, trying to stay true to its source, is being set in the 1940s. Sushant Singh Rajput is playing the eponymous character of Byomkesh Bakshi.
The Byomkesh Bakshi series are immensely popular in Bengali popular culture. Over the years many films and telefilms have been based on this character. The first actor to play this character in a feature length film was none other than Uttam Kumar, who is widely considered as the biggest star of all time in the Bengali film industry. The film that he played Byomkesh in, Chiriakhana, was directed by Satyajit Ray.
More recently, actor Abir Chatterjee has portrayed the character of the detective in a series of films directed by Anjan Dutta.
The Watson to Byomkesh’s Holmes, the character of Ajit, is being played by Anand Tiwari. The film is being co-produced by Yash Raj Films and will release in early 2015.
Vidya Balan’s Bobby Jasoos, yet another film with a detective in the lead, is set to release on July 4. Balan plays the role of a female detective. An image of her dressed as a homeless man on the sets of Bobby Jasoos went viral on the social media websites creating a real buzz about the film.