88 Antop Hill

Infobox Film
name = 88 Antop Hill


imdb_id = 0349058
writer = Kushan Nandy
Kiran Shroff
producer = Kiran Shroff
director = Kushan Nandy
starring = Rahul Dev
Atul Kulkarni
Shweta Menon
Jasmine
music = Rajesh Roy
released = June 27, 2003
runtime = 122 min
language = Hindi

"88 Antop Hill" is a 2003 Hindi film, written and directed by Kushan Nandy. It is a murder mystery

Plot overview

The film opens with the brutal murder of Neeraj (Sachin Dubey). His body is dumped in the trunk of a car. This crime isn't committed on impulse. Whoever did it had good reason.

We then enter the life of a bank executive Pratyush Shelar (Atul Kulkarni). He gets home late on his anniversary because he had to console an old college classmate about her marital woes. His own marital woes are worsened when his wife Antara (Suchitra Pillai) kicks up a big fight and leaves their home with their daughter Saanjh.

Pratyush is upset about this. His colleague Aslam Durrani (Harsh Khurana) picks up on this and suggests an exotic dancer Teesta (Shweta Menon). Pratyush is too upset to be interested. But Aslam is determined; later that night he calls Pratyush and pretends as though some thugs are about to kill him; and he asks Pratyush to come immediately to a certain location.

That location is 88 Antop Hill.

Pratyush arrives. 88 Antop Hill is a halfway house mainly occupied by exotic dancers and escorts. Pratyush walks into the flat Aslam had mentioned; it is Teesta's lair. She attempts to seduce him but he refuses her advances. Upon her request, he takes her to the Moksha club and buys her a drink. (He doesn't drink.) She remarks that the bartender Sol (Rahul Panday) knows all her secrets. When he brings her back home, he realizes he is missing his car keys. He waits as she looks for them.

When Teesta gets into her bedroom, she is mysteriously murdered. She stumbles into Pratyush's arms, fatally stabbed, and collapses. Scared and confused, Pratyush leaves immediately. One of the neighbors, a weird and on-and-off senile old fellow called Murli Mansukhani (Shauket Baig) sees him leave.

when the cops begin to investigate, they find that Teesta had a roommate Sonali Jasmine, and that Sonali is engaged to a prominent businessman, K.K. Menon (Sanjay Singh). The investigating officer, and the hero of this movie, is Inspector Arvind Khanvilkar (Rahul Dev). The prime suspect is an unwitting Pratyush because he was the last person to see Teesta alive.

A somewhat convoluted plot evolves. Sonali has several dark secrets and a good-for-nothing brother Prashant (Subrotto Dutta). Teesta was somehow connected to Sonali's dark past. Menon knows this and wanted to wipe out everything, including Prashant. He conspires with Sol to bump off Prashant. There is a three-way fight among them. Pratyush arrives upon the scene and witnesses two more murders. In the meantime, the weird old man of 88 Antop Hill, Murli, recalls that he had seen Pratyush and follows him to blackmail him. When Pratyush asks him to get lost, he tries to blackmail Sonali.

Pratyush contacts the cops but a dumbwitted cop sternly asks him to surrender. Pratyush panics and goes to Sonali. Menon and the good inspector show up as well. But the killer has struck again and Murli is dead.

The film ends with the inspector and Pratyush forming an uneasy alliance to find the murderer.

Cast

*Rahul Dev ... Inspector Arvind Khanvilkar.
*Atul Kulkarni ... Pratyush Shelar
*Shweta Menon ... Teesta
*Jasmine ... Sonali
*Shauket Baig ... Murli Mansukhani

Notes and Trivia

This is an offbeat sort of movie. Rahul Dev has the best part and the best one-liners. The photographic effects are slick but a bit over the top in some cases. The plot spawns a convoluted set of relationships but then all the people are killed off, and this leads to a dry and bland revelation at the end.