Bypass Road
Ratings: 2/5
Duration: 1 Hrs 58 Mins
Director: Naman Nitin Mukesh
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: 08 November, 2019 (India)
Star Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Adah Sharma, Sudhanshu Pandey, Rajit Kapoor, Gul Panag, Shama Sikander
Plot: Bypass Road is a story of a wheelchair-bound paraplegic young man Vikram (Neil Nitin Mukesh) who is a fashion prodigy, the victim of a brutal accident, but is also a prime suspect in a murder.
Starring Adah Sharma as the female lead, the film also stars Rajit Kapur as Neil’s father and Gul Panag as his stepmother. Television actor Shama Sikander makes her return to the silver screen and plays the character of Sarah.
The movie revolves around Sarah’s murder, which is being passed off as a suicide. When Vikram and Sarah get together for a night of some passion-filled, meaningless fun, it changes the course of their individual fates. While Vikram manages to cheat death and meets with a near-fatal accident, which leaves him paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound, Sarah succumbs to her injuries that appear to be self-inflicted on the outside. But in reality, it is more than just what meets the eye. A masked killer is out to get him, and that, in turn, is part of a bigger plan involving money, property, love, betrayal, and family turning their backs on each other.
Review: Debutant director Naman Nitin Mukesh tries to incorporate certain tried-and-tested formulas, the crime-thriller genre is known for. The story, screenplay, and dialogues are written by Neil himself. While the screenplay is good, some of the dialogues are laughable and straight out the 70s.
The film's plot tends to entangle itself that causes confusion. Imagine watching a cat and mouse chase each other for more than 20 minutes. That's how Neil Nitin Mukesh plays the game of chase with the killer. The sequence, where the killer is trying to eliminate Neil's character, goes on and on without any thrills whatsoever. The big revelation is straight out of Race 3 which you will see coming halfway through the movie.
When it comes to performances, it is Neil Nitin Mukesh who shines. He is earnest for the most part and carries the film on his able shoulders, though he goes overboard in the climax. The rest of the cast, be it Rajit Kapur as the lead's father, Gul Panag as the stepmother, Shama Sikander as the supermodel and Adah Sharma as the do-gooder intern are stock characters that stick to the minimal.
The pace of the film is slow for a thriller. The first half is quite intriguing. Though the whole second half is overstretched, the execution of several scenes is laughable mainly in the second half. Even if some of the background scores is lifted from Hollywood, it is quite good throughout the film. Considering it a thriller, the movie should have been smooth with sharper editing.
Overall, Bypass Road has some interesting sequences that offer quite a few nail-biting scenes and some gripping action sequences. But due to overstretched narrative, predictable plot twist, lack of smart writing, the film fails to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
