Ittefaq‘s trailer opens with a wounded man staggering towards a young woman on the hallway of a building, begging for help. “One phone call. Please?” he says, with cuts and blood oozing from the corners of his face. Wary of him, the woman lets him inside the house, with the intention of asking him leave immediately after he makes the call. They have alcohol together, she slips into something more comfortable, and presumably tries to seduce him.
This is the man’s version, a crime suspect played by Sidharth Malhotra. Playing Vikram Sethi, we see Sidharth claiming his innocence and branding the woman’s story fake. His wife, Katherine, too was murdered, and so was the woman’s husband, Shekhar. We watch him lose his temper, cry, look scared. And look evil, absolutely evil in the woman’s version.
In Maya’s version, she claims Vikram forcibly entered her house, after perhaps murdering his wife and her husband. “I didn’t have a drink with Vikram willingly,” is one of her answers during the interrogation. We watch her lose her temper, cry, and look terrified. And much like Vikram, she, too, is absolutely evil in the man’s version.
The trailer is pacy enough to appear as a classic whodunit, a much-needed break from the romantic comedies currently being made in Bollywood. There’s a quintessential tough cop played by Akshaye Khanna, who is playing his second cop role this year. Sonakshi and Sidharth are playing characters with shades of grey, difficult to peg who the real killer is between them.
Directed by Abhay Chopra, the trailer shows some deftly-worked camera work by DOP Michal Luka and some punch dialogues written by Chopra, Shreyas Jain, and Nikhil Mehrotra.
Towards the end of the trailer, a third suspect is hinted at but no one knows who. A classic Chekhov’s gun perhaps?
The film is scheduled to release on November 2.
Watch the trailer here:
Feature Image: YouTube screen grab