First things first, 'Vikalp' isn't meant for 'aam junta' by any means. Since the film talks heavily about risk, security, code, hacking devices etc., it would be mostly indecipherable by a large segment of audience. Nothing wrong with that. After all as long as the film has a set target audience for itself and made in a reasonably budget, it is fine to pitch it accordingly.
However in execution of these ideas, there are problems aplenty. First and foremost problem is the very title of the film. Director Sachin P. Karande's debut flick 'Payback' released just a few days back and went unnoticed due to the very same reason. Now 'Vikalp' is even dicier as it gives an impression of a serious film with philosophical tone to it instead of a thriller about the hacking world.
'Vikalp' is about a young girl (Deepal Shaw) who has learnt the art of hacking entirely on her own but uses it in an ethical manner to expose loopholes in a system rather than misusing it for her own personal use. After being ridiculed by her first organisation, she moves to Bangkok and starts life afresh in a new IT company. Her assignment involves developing a hacking code that could be further used to safeguard the world of banking. But was this her real assignment?
After a jittery initial portion of the film which moves at a snail's pace, there is some movement that takes place once she manages to retrieve her stolen files from the server. After she reaches Bangkok for her new assignment and begins to write hacking code, the film does pick up pace. While one can see the twist coming from a distance, the interval point is decent enough to make you look forward to the second half.
However, after a few interesting moments in the first 20-25 minutes of the second half, the film goes downhill, and how. A couple of random songs come out of nowhere, love stories start building up, Deepal's ex-boy friend lands up in Bangkok, her new boy friend has his own back story as well and then the worst of all are the penultimate 20-25 minutes where everything starts falling in (or out) of place way too conveniently. The revelation of culprits is hardly a surprise while the gun fire that happens inside an IT organisation is, to put it mildly, rubbish.
Amongst actors, Deepal definitely looks committed in her central protagonist character that she plays. Amongst other actors, the ones who leave an impression are Chetan Pandit (her boss in Bangkok) and the man who plays her boyfriend in Bangkok. Music is barely passable while cinematography is plain average.
Really, for a film that did show a glimmer of hope at number of places and promised that there would be a good story in the offing after all fails miserably as it reaches the culmination point. To think of it, a film which had followed a real route and narrated the story of an IT professional who was a top ethical hacker ends at a stage where there is gunfire and 'dhishoom dhishoom' all around. Now if this isn't taking cinematic liberty too far, what else is?
Rating: **
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