''Main aur Charles'' () is a 2015

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combi ...

written and directed by

Prawaal Raman Prawaal Raman is an Indian film director and screenwriter known for his works in Hindi cinema. He has written and directed films like ''Darna Mana Hai'' (2003), '' Gayab'' (2004), ''Darna Zaroori hai'' (2006), '' 404'' (2011) and '' Main Aur Cha ...

and produced by Cynozure Networkz. The film is a fictitious thriller inspired by true events; it is told from the perspective of the Indian cop, Amod Kanth, who handled the case of the Indian Origin French

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

Charles Sobhraj Charles Sobhraj (born Hotchand Bhawnani Gurmukh Sobhraj, 6 April 1944) is a French serial killer, fraudster, and thief of Indian-Vietnamese descent, who preyed on Western tourists travelling on the hippie trail of South Asia during the 1970s. H ...

who was known as the bikini killer. The film opened on 30 October 2015 to positive reviews across India. However, it was a

box office flop A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

, grossing against a budget. The film stars

Randeep Hooda Randeep Hooda (; born 20 August 1976) is an Indian actor and equestrian known for his work predominantly in Hindi cinema. Hooda made his Hindi film debut with ''Monsoon Wedding''. He had a turning point in his career with the gangster film ''O ...

Richa Chadda Richa Chadda (born 18 December 1986) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. After debuting in a small role in the comedy film '' Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!'' (2008), Chadda's breakthrough came in 2012 with a supporting role in the noir gang ...

Adil Hussain Adil Hussain () is an Indian actor who has worked in Indian cinema, including art house cinema and mainstream Bollywood, as well as international cinema, in films such as '' The Reluctant Fundamentalist'' and '' Life of Pi'' (both 2012). He r ...

Tisca Chopra Tisca Zareen Chopra (née Arora; born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress, author and film producer who has appeared in over 45 feature films, predominantly in Hindi language. ''Taare Zameen Par'', her best known feature film, was India's off ...

, and

Alexx O'Nell Alexx O'Nell (born Alexander Leonard O'Neill on July 26, 1980) is an American actor and musician who is based in India and has appeared in films, series, and music videos in English and Indian languages. He is best known for '' Golondaaj'', '' R ...

in lead roles. Through the narrative, we see a series of crimes committed by Charles and the story of each of his victims, who fell for his charisma but were betrayed by his serpentine nature. The man not just escaped several high security jails but also manipulated the legal system. In the title, ''Main aur Charles'', the word 'Main' means 'me' and stands for the character of Amod Kanth. The film was warmly accepted in the trade for its impeccable direction, casting and background score. Apart from these technicalities, the film has satisfied critics creatively with fine performances by Hooda, Chadha and Hussain.

Cast

- Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj / Zubin Pratap * Richa Chaddha - Mira Sharma (Charles's girl friend) *

- Amod Kanth *

- Richard Thomas * Lucky Morani - Dr. Ashima Mehra (criminal psychologist) *

Mandana Karimi Mandana Karimi (born Manizeh Karimi; on 19 May 1988) is an Iranian actress and model based in India. After working on several successful modelling projects around the world, she appeared as a lead in the Bollywood film, '' Bhaag Johnny''. She p ...

- Liz (Charles's girl friend) * Shaanti - Princess Malvika * Dijana Dejanovic - Charles's Lawyer *

Vipin Sharma Vipin Kumar Sharma is an Indian actor, editor and filmmaker. He is best known for his acting roles in ''Taare Zameen Par'' (2007), ''Gangs of Wasseypur'' (2012), '' Kick'' (2014), '' Paatal Lok'' (2020) and ''The Family Man'' (2021). Early lif ...

- Satender Kumar (Jailor) *

- Reena (Amod Kanths' wife) *

Kanika Kapoor Kanika Kapoor (born 21 August 1978) is an Indian singer. She was born and raised in Lucknow. In 2012, she relocated to Mumbai to become a singer. Kapoor's first song " Jugni Ji" (2012) was for a music videowhich became a commercial success. In ...

- Special appearance as bar singer * Anastasia Fullfina - Andrea (Charles's girl friend) *

Nandu Madhav Nandu Madhav is an Indian actor known for his works in Marathi cinema and theatre. He is known for the his titular role in Paresh Mokashi's '' Harishchandrachi Factory'' which won the Best Feature Film in Marathi award in the 56th National Fi ...

- Inspector Sudhakar Zhende * Saurabh Sarkar- Bajrangi Babu * Sandeep Punia - Satpal Punia * Satyakam Gupta - Rajan Ahuja * Shanu Dev - Mr.Joshi (Investigating Officer) * Abhiskek Diwan - Hemant

Production

The film was shot in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to th ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

Pattaya Pattaya ( th, พัทยา, , ) is a city in Thailand. It is on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about southeast of Bangkok, within, but not part of, Bang Lamung district in the province of Chonburi. Pattaya City ( th, เมือ ...

, and

Udaipur Udaipur () (ISO 15919: ''Udayapura''), historically named as Udayapura, is a city and Municipal corporation (India), municipal corporation in Udaipur district of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is the administrative headquarter of Udaipur dis ...

Soundtrack

The music for ''Main Aur Charles'' is composed by Vipin Patwa, Aditya Trivedi, Bally Grunge and Sanjeev-Darshan. The full audio album was released on 15 October 2015. The

music rights Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without ...

are acquired by T-Series.

Reception

Shubhra Gupta Shubhra Gupta is an Indian film critic, writer and columnist for ''The Indian Express'' from New Delhi, India. She received the Ramnath Goenka Award for Best Writing on Cinema in 2012. She was a member of the Central Board of Film Certificatio ...

for ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Limited, Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, ...

'' rated 1 star out of 5 and wrote "The film should have been riveting. But it comes off as a slapdash, confused collage of scenes involving the famous jail break in which the real life Sobhraj broke free with several prisoners: it was the kind of astoundingly brazen 'kaand' whose reverberations were felt in the system for a long time." Sweta Kaushal for ''

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia. It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...

'' wrote "The film does not just fail, it crashes miserably." Nandini Ramnath for '' Scroll.in'' wrote "The brazen fun that Charles and his cohorts are having is contrasted with the routine police work by Adil Hussain’s overly loud and morally outraged cop. Hussain’s outrage at Charles seems to be the result of envy." On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 33% based on 6 reviews, and an average rating of 5/10. Rachit Gupta for ''

Filmfare ''Filmfare'' is an Indian English-language fortnightly magazine published by Worldwide Media. Acknowledged as one of Indian most popular entertainment magazines, it publishes pieces involving news, interviews, photos, videos, reviews, events, a ...

'' wrote "Main Aur Charles is also a period film. But most of it takes place on beaches in Goa, courtrooms and jails. Locations that haven’t really changed in the past 30 odd years. So the only place that you actually get to see a simulated sense of the ‘70s and ‘80s is the fashion."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 4024944 2015 films Films scored by Vipin Patwa Indian erotic thriller films 2010s Hindi-language films Films shot in Bangkok Films shot in Goa 2010s avant-garde and experimental films Films shot in Madhya Pradesh Fictional portrayals of the Goa Police Films shot in Thailand 2015 crime drama films Indian avant-garde and experimental films Films shot in Delhi Films shot in Mumbai Indian crime drama films Biographical films about serial killers Biographical films about fraudsters Cultural depictions of French men Cultural depictions of male serial killers Cultural depictions of fraudsters Films directed by Prawaal Raman