The very first thing that gets your goat while watching The Hangman is the choice of language. As each dialogue is uttered, you wonder why English? It does nothing for the film except to make it sound like some school play going on. As it is, one has to be extremely cautious with Indian English. It tends to sound stagey and stilted if not controlled properly and this is something even Slumdog Millionaire was unable to avoid. Not only does the film sound fake, but the stilted English ends up making even the more emotional moments in the film unintentionally funny.

And then as the film unravels, you understand why it was stalled for so long. Almost six years in the making, this was supposed to be Shreyas Talpade's cinematic debut. The basic problem is the film fails to connect with you or make you feel for any of the events happening on screen. The screenplay is weak, you cannot figure out the relevance of setting this film in the 1970s as nowhere does the film have any sort of comment on that era, while the look and production design of that time leaves a lot to be desired.

That said, the second half did have potential to be a reasonably gripping drama with its plot points and all, but the film fails in its execution as well. Scenes like revealing what happened in the whorehouse later fall flat as we already guess what has happened seeing Shreyas's reaction in the whorehouse and him in jail subsequently. And did we have to have the tacky and 'hopeful' ending of finding the baby in the garbage???

The two central performances try and do what they can to salvage the film but sadly, it is nowhere enough. Om Puri is efficient enough in a lost cause as the hangman who wants a better life for his son but even he can't control the more serious or emotional moments with the tacky English dialogue. I suppose one can't say now that Shreyas Talpade makes a confident debut as the son whose life goes horribly wrong but yes, he acquits himself reasonably well. Gulshan Grover, for once, stays in control while Smita Jaykar as the mother and Tom Alter as the kindly priest are strictly ok. However, both the young girls are total no-nos and plain embarrassing.

The technicalities don't really add anything to the film. Overall, The Hangman just doesn't work, period.