'Lost' review: Story, coherence, pace are lost in all-over-the-place thriller
What's the story
Yami Gautam Dhar's latest film Lost arrived on ZEE5 on Thursday.
It's been directed by Pink fame Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and co-stars Pankaj Kapur, Rahul Khanna, and Tushar Pandey.
An exhausting, drab watch from start to finish, the dispirited film has almost nothing going in its favor, and its patchy screenplay and convoluted storylines ensure that the film doesn't warrant even a one-time watch.
Plot
Film follows a young actor's abduction and search for justice
Lost begins with a bomb blast that consumes the lives of a West Bengal minister's personnel and immediately cuts to a flashback to tell the tale of Ishaan Bharti, a young theater activist who has gone missing sans a trace.
Vidhi Sahani, an ambitious investigative reporter who lives and breathes journalism, makes it a personal cause to get involved and seek justice for Bharti.
Negative #1
Everything feels too mechanical, too cosmetic
Most of the film seems soulless and unimaginative- picture a broad canvas with no colors.
One of the first aspects that caught my attention was the dialogue delivery—it's too mechanical and majorly stripped of any flow, so much so that the words feel less like a movie's dialogues and more like lines being read from a script that ideally should have seen better days.
Negative #2
Patchy screenplay and editing snap connect, hard to stay focused
Pink was engaging, intense, and impressive, but Lost, alas, cannot even be mentioned in the same breath.
Scenes slide onto the screen with no coherence, multiple characters come and go, and the drama struggles for pace—it feels like two different movies are running parallel.
I am all for suspension of disbelief, but here, I couldn't have been more thankful for the fast-forward feature.
Negative #3
How many characters are too many characters?
Pushing too many people in the same frame isn't exactly a problem—Priyadarshan's and David Dhawan's films do it all the time, but Lost, even during its most bearable parts, cannot achieve that consistency.
There is always too much going on—patriarchy, theater's lowly reputation, Maoists' violence, police-political nexus, etc.
However, everything is undercooked, everything is raw.
It may come with garnishing but it's eventually inedible.
Negative #4
Where is the thrill in this 'thriller'?
For a film that falls into the thriller genre, this soporific drama has no suspense, intrigue, or cliffhanger moments, and the predictable use of all tried-and-tested tropes mutilates whatever scope the plot has in the first place.
Eventually, it largely becomes a labored watch, something you would complete only for the sake of it and not necessarily because it keeps you effortlessly hooked.
Performances
Gautam Dhar is perhaps 'Lost's only watchable aspect
One has to root for Gautam Dhar—even when Lost crumbles, collapses, and creaks, her performance remains consistent and passionate.
If only the story had propped itself up and matched her acting charisma, Lost would have been a much better affair.
Additionally, her scenes with Kapur (who plays her grandfather) steal the spotlight; there is a sense of familiarity there that is hard to miss.
Verdict
You won't be missing anything by missing 'Lost'
I recommend watching Lost only if you're a Gautam Dhar fan.
The scattershot drama's pace is uneven; the film moves around in circles; it's frustratingly and even annoyingly predictable; and there is nothing about it that can keep you glued for two hours.
Gautam Dhar tries her best, sure, but an actor alone can seldom save a sinking ship.
Lost deserves 1.5/5 stars.