A scathing critique of Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, exploring how lack of imagination, poor execution, and hollow nostalgia destroy the potential of a once-promising Bengali franchise.

Sayantan Ghosal’s Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan is a stark example of everything wrong with contemporary Bengali adventure cinema—uninspired direction, poor screenplay, weak performances, and overreliance on nostalgia. Intended as a continuation of the Jawker Dhan series, this film stumbles under the weight of hollow storytelling, sloppy execution, and the misuse of Satyajit Ray’s legacy. With lifeless cinematography, cringe-worthy visual effects, and mechanical acting from stars like Parambrata Chattopadhyay, the film not only disappoints longtime fans but also tarnishes the memory of beloved characters like Mukul. A creative disaster in every respect, this film exemplifies the pitfalls of lazy franchise filmmaking.

An Unworthy Return to the Golden Fortress

Poor Mukul. Little would he have known that after he had shut his sketchbook with a drawing of ‘Feluda, Topshe Aar Ami’ in the closing sequences of Sonar Kella over fifty years ago, he would have to go through the entire rigmarole of being hypnotized and made to remember his past life all over again.

The ‘inspired-by-and-tribute-to-Satyajit Ray’ cottage industry has been the bane of the Bengali film industry for some time now. The last two Eken Babu films – Ruddhaswas Rajasthan and Benares e Bibhishika – were hat-tips to Ray’s journeys to Rajasthan and Benares with Feluda. At least the Eken Babu films have a principal protagonist in Anirban Chakrabarti who can help overcome the sense of déjà vu that these inspired stories reek of. Sayantan Ghosal’s Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan, the latest instalment in the adventure-thriller series based on Hemendrakumar Roy’s pulp-fiction universe, does not even have that saving grace. It’s the most uninspired and directionless entry in the series to date – a film that not only misfires at every turn but also reflects an alarming creative stagnation in Bengali genre cinema. Cloaked in the illusion of nostalgia and adventure, Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan is a joyless, unimaginative film that fatally misjudges both its source material and its audience.

Direction That Lacks Purpose

The most glaring problem lies in Sayantan Ghosal’s limp direction. While his debut (Jawker Dhan, 2017) showed some flair for crafting atmospheric tension and using tight spaces for claustrophobic thrills, Sonar Kellay… feels like the work of a filmmaker out of ideas and out of sync with the tone his film demands. Adventure thrillers demand propulsion, rhythm, and a sense of escalating mystery. Ghosal’s direction provides none of that. Scenes meander pointlessly, the camera rarely finds a purpose beyond basic coverage, and even action set-pieces – that look straight out of the dubbed Telugu films which are a rage on television – are handled with the energy of a tea break. There is no tension, no urgency, and worse, no sense of discovery. Everything feels like it’s been done before, and better, in previous entries or, more damningly, in low-budget TV serials.

The screenplay, credited to Sougata Basu, is a lumbering, derivative mess. There is little sense of coherence in the plotting. The story opens with a promising mystery: the pursuit of a powerful ancient elixir hidden inside a golden fortress. But the moment the exposition-heavy dialogues begin – complete with cartoonish villains and pseudo-scientific gobbledygook – the narrative collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

Dialogue is one of the script’s major failings. Characters speak in bland, info-dumping sentences. There’s no wit, no rhythm, no emotional undertone. Even supposed dramatic confrontations are flattened by lines that feel written by an algorithm trained on Wikipedia entries about ‘ancient secrets’ and ‘family curse’ that are shallow and feel tacked-on. There is no thematic depth or consistency, just a bland stew of plot devices borrowed from better films. Look at the villain trying to hypnotize Mukul to get him to remember his past – it is done so badly that it does not even raise a laughter of derision.

A Cast That Seems to Have Given Up

Parambrata Chattopadhyay, as Bimal, looks visibly disinterested. What was once a spirited performance in the earlier films has now turned into a pay-cheque role. His delivery is mechanical, his physicality sluggish, and his chemistry with the rest of the cast virtually non-existent. The actor, one of the finest in the industry, seems to be phoning this one in, that too on autopilot mode. Gaurav Chakrabarty, as Kumar, fares even worse. He brings neither intelligence nor charisma to the role. Kumar is supposed to be the impetuous, brave counterpart to Bimal’s methodical nature, but Gaurav plays him as a perpetual sidekick with no real identity. His reactions are limited to wide-eyed stares and monotone speech, and one wonders why the filmmakers insist on dragging this character across multiple films without developing him. Equally pathetic are the duo’s fight sequences that simply drive home the point that aping what films in the South do, without the flair or the technical expertise, only makes the stars look ridiculous.

Saheb Chatterjee is reduced to a caricature, hamming his way through scenes. The less said about the supporting cast, the better – most of them barely register, and those that do feel like they were hired straight from regional television soaps. As for Suprobhat Das as Mukul Dhar, he seems to be wondering what he is doing with the all-round mess that he is witness to. If he knew this is what lay in store for him, he would have probably sought a moratorium on his reincarnation.

A Visual Experience That Looks Rushed

Adventure films rely on visual storytelling – striking locations, interesting set design, and dynamic cinematography. Here, Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan fails abysmally. The supposed grandeur of the ‘golden fortress’ looks like a poorly lit, plywood-and-fabric TV studio set. There is no scale, no texture, no attention to detail. Everything looks artificial – not in a stylized way, but in a ‘this-was-shot-in-a-hurry’ way.

The cinematography is equally uninspired. Most of the film is framed in tight, dull compositions with no sense of spatial geography or atmosphere. The lighting is flat and generic, making even night-time scenes look like bad daytime drama. The few outdoor sequences suffer from hasty editing and poor location choices – with even panoramic vistas of the endless desert failing to inspire any sense of awe. There is no sense of place or journey – a fatal flaw in a film that purports to be an adventure. The CGI, used sparingly, is amateurish and distracting. A few visual effects, meant to convey ancient mechanisms and scientific wonders, are laughably bad and do not hold up even by the standards of regional cinema.

An Adventure Devoid of Wonder

The film drags at every step. The first act is bloated with exposition, the second meanders in pointless subplots, and the third act – which should be the payoff – is a barrage of loud, incoherent sequences that leave no impact. Laughably, there are so many characters who seem to be reincarnated souls or their descendants that at one point I began to wonder whether they would pull out a Feluda too as a reincarnation. There is no narrative tension. Every twist is telegraphed. Every revelation is underwhelming.

Scenes that should evoke wonder or suspense – such as discovering the escape route from the fortress to the lost village or decoding a secret puzzle – are treated like casual errands. Characters walk into dangerous situations as if they’re attending to their morning ablutions. There is no build-up, no payoff, no emotional stakes.

Let’s come to the background score. Why is it that Bengali cinema simply does not understand the purpose of background music? Almost every film literally drowns a scene in overpowering BGM. It’s as if the filmmakers simply don’t trust their own work and the world which they are creating to make it come alive without the use of music. Instead of elevating the tension or adventure, the music here swamps scenes in bombastic, overused motifs that try too hard to sound ‘epic’.

A Franchise That Should Be Left Undisturbed

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan is that it represents the exhaustion of what could have been a promising franchise. The original Jawker Dhan (2017) was flawed but had a sense of ambition and curiosity. Its sequel, Sagardwipey Jawker Dhan (2019), tried to raise the stakes with ecological themes. But Sonar Kellay… is creatively bankrupt. It offers nothing new, not even recycled well. The absence of any world-building or long-form character development makes this film feel less like a sequel and more like a disconnected, lazy reboot of the same tropes. And yet, it insists on pretending it is part of an ongoing saga, one that no one seems invested in anymore. Add to that the sheer shame of playing to the gallery with the Bengali’s nostalgia for Sonar Kella.

Sayantan Ghosal’s Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan is not just a bad film – it is a deeply disappointing one. It is a case study in how not to handle adventure storytelling: joyless, no craft, and utterly forgettable. It squanders its cast, wastes its premise, and insults the intelligence of its audience with its lazy plotting and uninspired execution. There are bad films that fail because they try too hard. Sonar Kellay Jawker Dhan fails because it doesn’t try at all.

If this is the future of Bengali adventure cinema, perhaps the Jawker Dhan series should be sealed in a vault, never to be unearthed again. And with that, all attempts to evoke Satyajit Ray and his Feluda films in the service of mediocrities like this.