Bengal Files - Proof is in the Pudding

Bengal Files

2025, Hindi

Action Thriller

Directed by Vivek Agnihotri

Stars: Darshan Kumar, Simraut Kaur, Pallavi Joshi, Ekalavya Sood, Mithun Chakraborty

Mohan's Measure ⭐

I had my doubts about this film all along, and so it has taken me months to settle in and watch it on Netflix.  To my amazement, I find that my reluctance is truly justified and such dissatisfaction goes one step further.

Despite being touted as history, The Bengal Files is a fictional love story, set around some of the most graphic scenes of violence and bloodshed ever shown on screen. While Mr. Agnihotri's previous two movies aimed at politics, corruption and the need for basic human decency, this one throws all of that in our face, soaked in blood.

The plot is told by an aging woman who is the only witness to the disappearance of a young woman.  She is being interviewed by a police man who thinks that hearing about the incidents surrounding Direct Action Day will provide information on the missing girl.  Unfortunately, within an hour of this endlessly long film, we forget about everything else and find ourselves rooting for the younger version of this aging woman and rugged Sardar who does everything to keep her safe.

The problem is that rather than telling us facts, the director numbs our mind to repetitive scenes of corpses and body parts, and the maze-like chase through the streets of these two people.  Why just the two? There is no clear explanation, the director perhaps seeing it as unnecessary to the story.  In brief moments of quiet, we see the stereotypical police officer trying to piece together what she is saying, and slowly going from a desire for justice to a desire for revenge.

Revenge is offered, with no result or explanation, 75 years after the incidents occurred, to a man whose connection to all of this is not made clear.

Not quite clear to me is my own intentions for wasting away a Saturday afternoon.