Why Dibakar's Byomkesh Bakshy Failed

Dibakar Banerjee is heartbroken but putting up a brave front. His ambitious venture Detective Byomkesh Bakshi has not set the cash registers ringing.

The film took a poor start on the opening day (a holiday), showed decent growth over the weekend, but collections came crashing down on Monday. Due to the huge drop in business on each weekday, the film has lost more than 75% of its screens in Week 2.  In fact, Hollywood’s biggest grosser in India ‘Fast and Furious 7 has retained most of its screens this week too and has replaced Detective Byomkesh Bakshi at several high-end theatres.

The common view is that the film had no performances, punch lines and background music to gloat about, An exhibitor (name withheld on request) says, "Seems, Dibakar has not seen Basu Chatterjee's Byomkesh Bakshi episodes which made you think and guess. His presentation had no story."

A leading distributor (on request of anonymity) says, "Dibakar needs to do some soul searching. Many people didn't even understand Detective Byomkesh Bakshy."

Talking to SpotboyE.com, Anand Vishal, Head of Operations at Fun Cinemas, says, "I wouldn't know if people understood the film or not, but it would be wrong to cover up its failure by saying that it crashed because it locked horns with Fast & Furious 7. We are very disappointed with Detective Byomkesh Bakshy's outcome. It delivered far less than it promised."

Dibakar's previous film Shanghai too had disappointed. The question in the film industry is: Where does Dibakar go from here?



Manoj Desai (owner of Gaiety-Galaxy-Maratha Mandir) says, "How can anybody make a murder mystery at such a slow pace?  The audience were heard complaining that the film lacked pace."

Trade analyst Amod Mehra says, "To begin with, the film's publicity lacked innovation and aggression. The killer was not difficult to guess. There were no twists in the tale. Also, why was a whodunnit set against the backdrop of the Second World War?"

Film critic Komal Nahata was equally frank and forthcoming. When contacted, he said, "Dibakar failed to make Sushant's character endearing. Moreover, why did he disclose the killer at the interval? How can you have the entire second half devoted to how and why the murder happened? I would say that Dibakar got too indulgent with this film or fell in love with this subject."



Added Nahata, "Dibakar should either go back to his original style of film-making of Khosla Ka Ghosla and  Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! or make films which are more commercial than Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. His clear attempt to strike a balance between commerce and his style has not hit the bull's eye. If you try to sail in two boats simultaneously, you will drown." Words of wisdom? Definitely.



Are you reading this, Dibakar?

(Tune in to SpotboyE.com The Show on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 pm and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 1 pm on 9XM)