Saugata Ray Barman has been an extremely successful still photographer since he was 19 beginning with the dreaded dacoits of Chambal. He then made many documentaries to shift to advertising. 90 Hours is his directorial debut into the world of feature films. He is now 48. Asked what made him step into the dicey world of direction, he says, “I believe in the power of the mass medium. Creative photography is no doubt a strong visual medium. But we must accept the limitation also. Though we have great photographers like Raghu Rai, Raghubir Singh, Benu Sen and others but till today photography is not accepted as mass medium. I don't know why. Cinema on the other hand has tremendous mass appeal.”

For a psychological thriller, 90 Hours drags too much till the interval, as the screenplay tries to establish the credentials of Rishin and George, supplementing it with mere lip service to the two women, Mayuri and Payal, who have not been given a sense of history the two men have. The film needed a tighter pace, without wasting footage on the needless item number by Yana Gupta that adds neither gloss, nor any USP to an otherwise chilling script. Repeated visits to a psychiatrist who looks and acts like anything but one, slows the pace and takes away the suspense and the thrill even more. After the interval, once the deal is struck between the two men, the narrative gathers momentum and rushes at a thrilling pace to a long-drawn-out, melodramatic climax, only to resurrect itself in the final shot as, six months later, Rishin picks up the phone to answer a call. Silence of the Lambs (1991), anyone? Last year, young filmmaker Birsa Dasgupta made a telefilm called K. The storyline was similar with an alcoholic girl, separated from her husband and with a boy to look after, hires K, a contract killer, to bump her off. It was a dark, brooding film that explored the mindset of the killer than on his target.

The strength of the screenplay of 90 Hours lies in the director’s concentrating more on the characters than on the narrative. The narrative evolves out of the characters. Tota Roychoudhury as Vincent George, the schizophrenic contract killer who Mayuri left when she detected the traits of extreme violence in him, is a stylish, slick and sophisticated villain, Tota does complete justice to the character, thus establishing the polarity of his talent, with Chokher Bali’s Behari on one end and 90 Hours’ Vincent George on the other. The touch of his playing the violin is cliché but necessary for his schizophrenic traits. Jishu as Rishin offers him able support. He brings out the dark and bright shades of the character in the two parts of the film very well. The counterpoint in the two characters comes off well. But Jishu’s characterization is comparatively weaker even if footage-wise, he gets the better deal. But in terms of intensity and shades, 90 hours is Tota’s film all the way. Swastika, Majushree and Santu Mukherjee are okay in their sketchy roles. Swastika’s histrionic potential is yet to be tapped.

Samiran Dutta’s cinematography is in keeping with the ambience and pace of a thriller, capturing the dark shades of George’s apartment very well. The same goes for the ambience of the neighbourhood in which George lives. There are too many close-ups that dilute the perspective of the scenario. Deb Choudhury’s musical score is good for the soundtrack but the songs, sung extremely well, do not really belong to this film except the one that takes off into a poem from time to time. That touch of using the folk form of the khemta (the Bengali parallel for the nautanki in UP and Bihar and the lavni in Maharashtra) for Yana Gupta’s song in the item number is brilliant even if the song had no place in the film.

90 Hours offers a different brand of entertainment. Kudos to Ray Barman for having taken the risk of banking on actors who are yet to attain stardom in Tollygunge. They have fulfilled the faith he placed on them. At the end of the road, the film has more ‘psychology’ than ‘thrills’ because of the slow place. And one would like to remind Ray Barman that contract killers who are self-confessed ‘loners’ would never have a live-in girlfriend or frequent discotheques and nightclubs. Not even for you-know-what….