A man who could kill so many people and was able to amble out of jail after drugging every single guard has to be some sort of a genius and a psychopath, but Raman’s narrative never quite hits the high note, unlike the background music in the film. Instead, “Main Aur Charles” is a disjointed effort that chooses to focus on the trimmings while neglecting the actual story.

Main Aur Charles is worth a watch for Randeep Hooda alone. Couple that with a fabulous performance by Hussain and director Raman’s control over his subject make this worth a very strong recommendation.

Raman’s greatest crime in Main Aur Charles is perhaps this. He took a real-life story almost tailormade to transform into a gripping thriller and turned it into what is at best a documentary on 70’s fashion.

You don’t really mind the missing hard-boiled plot, because by the time the film ends, we are treated to well-shot frames and the amazing theme music. Style wins. The seduction is complete.

Main Aur Charles is indeed a great attempt that recreates the sensationalism of the ’70s and’ 80s, but loses its way just when you’re hoping hard it wouldn’t.

It’s difficult to know what to make of a film that casts Chadha as a wide-eyed ingénue (surely there’s no shortage of those in Bollywood) or suggests that Sobhraj is more victim than aggressor, something Mira tries to explain to Kanth without a trace of irony. Are we meant to take this at face value? Or is it just Raman’s way of showing how completely Sobhraj’s accomplices come under his spell?

There is hardly any intermingling of the black and white. Also, the jail break sequences and the subsequent chase demand more raw intensity than the slickness of the first half. And nothing is more frustrating when a thriller begins to sound like a drama!

…a grim, no-frills cop and criminal saga, but we wish the thrills were as potent and magnetic as Sobhraj’s notorious personality.

Had Raman stuck with his investigation into Charles’s mystique and his self-mythologisation, this movie might have actually become the sophisticated biopic it wants to be. Main Aur Charles should really have been about the poster, not the case file.