A moodboard, if there was one, while working on the story and screenplay of 47 Days (now streaming on Zee5) might have been a busy one, with many subplots that needed to be cohesively woven together. A drug racket, a Romeo-Juliet school play and one-sided romance, a husband trying to understand what shattered his happy family, suspicious suicides, the frustration that builds up within the police force… There’s a lot going on in the film written and directed by Pradeep Maddali, but it ends up as a hotchpotch. The only reason to watch it till the end is its leading man Satyadev, whose empathetic performance goes in vain.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Satyadev (Satyadev Kancharana) is on suspension after a mission goes wrong, and he’s also brooding over the loss of his wife Paddu (Roshini Prakash). He hallucinates and imagines her presence, unable to come to terms with her loss.
On Day 1, as the story begins, a body of a young corporate head honcho washes up on the Vizag shore, and the cops close it as a case of suicide. Things take a turn when Satya suspects something connecting this supposed suicide and that of his wife. He begins chasing the smallest of clues and is pulled into a web of mysterious happenings. Come to think of it, the premise would have made for a reasonably engaging film. But as different aspects of the mystery unfold, it feels like random ideas were put together.
47 Days
- Cast: Satyadev Kancharana, Pooja Jhaveri, Roshni Prakash
- Direction: Pradeep Maddali
- Streaming on: Zee5
In a better thriller, the progression of days would have built up momentum and kept us at the edge of the seat. In this film, the cards announcing Day 40 or 42 generate little interest.
The supporting actors grapple with poorly written parts and go through the dialogues and expressions just because they have to. The curious and suspicious looks from some of them are a giveaway of something sinister. We don’t know the brief given to them. But had some of these characters behaved normal, it might have added to the conceit till the final reveal.
The final twist makes a point about a section of the workforce bearing the brunt of disdain, of being scoffed at by the powers to be. But the episode doesn’t have its desired impact. The actor who plays this part goes overboard, and by then we’ve sat through a number of listless incidents in the film to be bothered.
The segment of ‘the mystery girl’ brings with it some more sub-plots — sexual harassment, childhood romance, a live-in relationship that goes sour… 47 Days bites off more than it can chew.
Raghu Kunche’s music works in a couple of songs. The title invokes memories of K Balachander’s 47 Rojulu starring Chiranjeevi and Jayaprada, but sadly, there’s nothing much to root for in this film.