Chehre

About the film

Chehre (transl. Faces) is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language mystery thriller film directed and co-written by Rumi Jaffery and produced by Anand Pandit with Saraswati Entertainment Private Limited. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Emraan Hashmi in lead roles, alongside Krystle D'Souza, Rhea Chakraborty, Siddhanth Kapoor, Annu Kapoor, Alexx O'Nell, Samir Soni, Dhritiman Chatterjee and Raghubir Yadav in supporting roles. It is an uncredited adaptation of the 1956 German novel A Dangerous Game by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, which had earlier been adapted in Marathi as Shantata! Court Chaalu Aahe (1971), in Kannada as Male Nilluvavarege (2015) and in Bengali as Anusandhan (2021).

The film was announced on 11 April 2019 and filming began on 10 May 2019. It was scheduled for a theatrical release on 17 July 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released in theatres on 27 August 2021. Upon release, the film was a box office disaster, grossing only ₹8 crore against its ₹25 crore budget.

Plot

Sameer Mehra (Emraan Hashmi), a business tycoon takes shelter at an old man's home in the mountains amidst a dangerous snowstorm. He is introduced to Jagdish Acharya (Dhritiman Chatterjee), a retired judge, Paramjeet Singh Bhullar (Annu Kapoor), a renowned defence counsel, Anna Matthews (Rhea Chakraborty), a house help, and one Hariya Jadhav (Raghubir Yadav). They are later joined by Lateef Zaidi (Amitabh Bachchan), a renowned public prosecutor who has a sharp wit and an eye for detail.

Lateef initiates a conversation with Sameer to check if he is the right subject for a practical game they play amongst themselves. Sameer introduces himself as a successful and ambitious executive of an ad agency who achieved everything on his own since he was orphaned at the age of 15. When Sameer takes a break, Lateef remarks to his friends that he is absolutely sure that Sameer is the right subject for their game, and as everyone values his opinion, they agree to this.

Everyone coerces Sameer to play the game, and he agrees. Later, Joe Matthews (Siddhanth Kapoor), an ex-convict accused of murder, joins them. Jagdish tells Sameer that he had pronounced judgement in Joe's case as he was caught killing the person who sexually assaulted his sister, and now that he has served his sentence, they are all on good terms with him.

Production

Filming began on 10 May 2019. First schedule ended on 16 June with a fourteen minute long shot by Bachchan in one go. Kriti Kharbanda was initially selected to star in the film but left due to a fallout with the makers. She was replaced by Krystle D'Souza.

Soundtrack

The music of film was composed by Vishal–Shekhar and Gourov Dasgupta while lyrics written by Farhan Memon and Rumy Jafry.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 0% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2.8/10.

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 calling Chehre "Engrossing" and wrote, "Captivating screenplay + wonderful performances by the principal cast makes chehre an interesting watch."

Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 saying that, "the film stodgy plot spoils the cast performance."

Key details