Durgamati

Durgamati is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language horror thriller film directed by G. Ashok which is a remake of his own Telugu-Tamil bilingual film Bhaagamathie (2018). It starred Bhumi Pednekar as an IAS officer, with Arshad Warsi, Jisshu Sengupta and Mahie Gill playing supporting roles. The film is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Akshay Kumar and Vikram Malhotra under T-Series, Cape of Good Films and Abundantia Entertainment.

The official announcement for the film was made on 30 November 2019. First shot was taken on 23 January 2020 in Madhya Pradesh and filming begun there on 30 January. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film has been available to stream worldwide from 11 December 2020 on Amazon Prime Video.

Plot
The film starts with Ishwar Prasad, a politician who vows to resign from his post if the government fails to recover idols that were stolen over a period of six months. This troubles his political rivals, who forge a plan to destroy his credibility with the help of CBI Joint Director Satakshi Ganguly Assistant Commissioner of Police Abhay Singh.

The two of them plan to interrogate IAS Chanchal Chauhan, a close confidante of Ishwar, who is in jail for murdering her fiancé Shakti, who was Abhay's brother. To avoid attention, they shift her to Durgamati Bungalow, a dilapidated, supposedly haunted house in the outskirts of a city, for the interrogation. The CBI question Chanchal to get some clues against Ishwar but she repeats that he is a good man, and that they are doubting his integrity without any proof in a cryptic but leading manner.

Later that night, the spirit of Durgamati, the Queen of the house before independence, takes control of Chanchal. The CBI team calls upon a psychiatrist to investigate the matter who concludes that Chanchal must be schizophrenic as she seems to take on a different persona and narrate some story from a book as if it were her own. He suggests that the CBI commit her to an asylum. However, Abhay suspects that this might be a ploy by her to escape and arranges for a spiritual guru to find out if there is paranormal activity. The guru suggests a few indicators. Later, Abhay discovers that those indicators to indicate the presence of ghosts in the bungalow. He also finds Chanchal hurting herself under the influence of the ghost. This leads to Abhay taking Chanchal to a mental hospital.

Ishwar visits her at the mental asylum and it is revealed that Chanchal had planned the entire thing to escape the CBI in return for 300 Crore kickback from Ishwar. It is also revealed that Ishwar had forced Chanchal to kill Shakti (her fiancé) to hide his scam regarding a welfare project.

Meanwhile, Satakshi realizes that Chanchal was trying to convey the truth of Ishwar's crimes using the story of Queen Durgamati, which she came across from the various writings and artifacts she had discovered in the bungalow. She also finds evidence of Ishwar's misdeeds and the site where he hid the villagers after killing Shakthi with a gun.

Thus vindicated, Chanchal is seen running a charity organization in memory of Shakthi. Satakshi then tells her that they thought they knew everything about her but never knew that she was a great magician in her childhood and that she knew Arabic. Chanchal replies by saying that she does not know Arabic, which shocks them, hinting that there was actual paranormal activity in the house.

Cast

 * Bhumi Pednekar as Chanchal Chauhan IAS / Durgamati
 * Arshad Warsi as Ishwar Prasad
 * Jisshu Sengupta as ACP Abhay Singh (Shakti's Elder Brother)
 * Mahie Gill as Satakshi Ganguly
 * Karan Kapadia as Shakti Singh
 * Prabhat Raghunandan as Ajay Yadav
 * Ashok Sharma as Ajay's father
 * Dhanraj as Nand singh
 * Brij Bhushan Shukla as Gopi
 * Ada Singh as Satakshi's daughter
 * Shoeb Ali as Sodhi
 * Shubhendra Gupta as Analyser
 * Chandan Vicky Roy as Darruk
 * Amit Behl as Jose
 * K. Durga Prasad as Selvam
 * Muskan Lalwani as Malti Sharma
 * Anant Mahadevan as Psychiatrist
 * Tanya Abrol as Peetal Devi ( Constable )

Release
On 23 November 2020, the title of the film was changed to Durgamati from Durgavati.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was available to stream worldwide from 11 December 2020 on Amazon Prime Video. The film's satellite rights were sold to Sony Max.

Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Joginder Tuteja of Planet Bollywood gave the film 2.5/5 stars writing 'Durgamati-An Entertaining Horror drama with Abbas Mustan style twist pe twist'. He concluded that 'All in all, Durgamati turns out to be one of those rare films (especially in the current times) that you can watch comfortably with your family. Play it on and you won't be disappointed.

Vaibhavi V Risbood of Pinkvilla too gave the film 2.5/5 stars and wrote 'Pednekar's thriller is like remarks on a report card-Can do better!'. She told that by the time you near the climax, you are already playing Desi Sherlock Homes with 'Spoiler alerts' flashing in your mind with neon lights. She concluded-'Unfortunately, Durgamati falls short of expectation'.

Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost gave the film 1.5/5 stars opining that 'Bhumi Pednekar toplines a horror flick that's deader than the dead woman at its centre'. She went on to say that Bhumi is capable of capturing viewer attention and hearts.

Pallabi Dey Purkayastha of Times of India gave the film 2.5/5 stars by saying that 'Durgamati is relevant but the storytelling lacks the spirit it needed'. She praised Sengupta's performance by saying that he charms us the way he always does, effortlessly. She concluded that Durgamati could be delivered better.

Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV have the film 1 star out of 5 saying 'Bhumi Pednekar's ghost story puts the dread of bad cinema in us' He said that Bhumi plunges into the role with enthusiasm, but fails.

Anupama Chopra, Editor-in-Chief of Film Companion, wrote, "My big takeaway from Durgamati was Kakorrhaphiophobia, which means the fear of failure. I had never heard the word before. In the film, it’s used by a psychiatrist who solemnly declares that this might be the issue with Chanchal, an IAS officer who seems to be possessed by the ghost of a long-dead queen."

Soundtrack
The film's music was composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Naman Adhikari, Abhinav Sharma and Malini Awasthi while lyrics written by Tanishk Bagchi and Dipti Misra.

Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durgamati