Writer-director R Balki has a knack for finding intriguing premises and dressing them with technical flourishes and sharp observations on society and its hypocrisies. On the surface, Chup is about a psychopath maiming film critics for giving inappropriate ratings to films
At the core, the three writers project the killer as a kind of self-appointed vigilante who is out there to save cinema from mediocrity and impose the tyranny of taste. To make the indie idea palatable for a larger audience, Balki advertises Amitabh Bachchan in a cameo to educate us that critics are crucial for the growth of the art form
Chup is less of a whodunit and more of a mystery that makes us wait for the motivation behind the gruesome murders
When the backstory doesn’t match the punishment meted out to critics, the climax is reduced to a charade
The connection between the action on-screen and the director’s harangue on criticism no longer remains organic, and the film peters out without a punch
