This is a half watchable film despite all that melodrama flying around. Sadly, if it had kept its head, this thriller could have gone places.

Inkaar could have been truly radical. But it becomes a film that prefers to cop out, rather than deliver on the promise it held out so bravely in its initial passages.

There are too many cheesy parties where everyone gets drunk, and the climax is a staggeringly disappointing cop-out. It undermines everything that has gone before.

What could have been an engrossing take on modern-day relationships in a frantic, workaholic culture is single-handedly destroyed by warped publicity and ridiculous conclusions.

Sexual harassment in the workplace isn’t the kind of premise that Hindi cinema tackles every other day. In that respect, Sudhir Mishra’s Inkaar is anything but an average Mumbai film. For the most part, it steers clear of the convenient certitudes that underpin popular movie narratives.

Polished-looking, its edges – the tension of feeling harassed at work, office politics, ego flashes – hold rather well. But its centre collapses in a soft mess.

There are rare moments in Inkaar that click, like Mishra cheekily referencing his own film, when at an ad film presentation for a condom brand, Verma comes up with the tagline, Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahi. The film, though, comes nowhere close to that, or any other, Mishra film. If you’re wise, you’ll refuse the offer to watch Inkaar at the multiplex near you.

INKAAR is for spectators of serious cinema. Caters to a niche audience!

‘Inkaar’ is another of Sudhir Mishra’s brilliances captured on celluloid. Don’t say a ‘no’ to this one.