Entertainment
‘Blackmail’: Complex, tedious yet entertaining
Film: “Blackmail”; Director: Abhinay Deo; Cast: Irrfan Khan, Kriti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh, Divya Dutta and Omi Vaidya; Rating: ***
Designed as an edgy, noir drama, “Blackmail” uses relentless ingenuity to dig its hero into deeper and deeper holes – until finally, when he seems defeated by the weight of his problems, it’s equally ingenious in digging him out again.
This is one of those plots where one thing leads to another – although it has an entirely different tone because the hero is a completely ordinary man, we begin to care about.
After seven years of their marriage, Dev Kaushal is a bored-to-death husband who spends much of his time in office. One day on the suggestion, from one of his close colleagues – Anand Tripathi, he lands up home to surprise his wife Reena. But instead, he is surprised by her infidelity. She is in bed with her boyfriend, Rajit Arora.
Dev, despite imagining himself flying into a rage against the two of them, prefers to being a timid cuckold. He walks off from his home dejectedly, only to return later.
The next day before leaving for office when his wife asks him to pay some essential bills, he hits upon an idea to blackmail his wife’s lover. This sets the ball rolling to a series of blackmails that catapults this serious drama to an intentional comedy, both situational and slapstick.
Writer Parveez Sheikh is merciless in creating one difficulty after another for his characters who are eventually shown as mercenaries. Every character is well-written and each one of them have a set of problems and there are long, sustained sequences in which every actor does his or her best.
While the first half is slow, the second half is better-paced. The curious thing is, the film more or less deserves the build-up to pile on complications and dark coincidences. Nevertheless, one may complain that the later developments are simply too implausible and tedious to sit through.
Irrfan does have a strong and particular screen presence. He is impressive and relatable. He can play tender and he can play smart with a poker face, two notes that he juggles well with. He moves around a lot seeming restless on screen.
Kirti Kulhari, as Dev’s unapologetic, cheating wife, gives a restrained but effective performance.
But the actors who steal the show are Arunoday Singh and Divya Dutta. The duo, as husband and wife play an odd couple. She as the boisterous wife, Dolly Verma and he as the timid, henpecked, husband – Rajit Arora, who is literally treated like a dog at his home.
As the beefed-up hunk, Arunoday reminds you of big Moose from Archies comic and he plays his part with his “DUH!” expression to the tee. In fact he shines with his performance and is definitely one of the plus points of the film.
The others in supporting cast who are brilliant as well are; Prabha Ghatpandey as Anuja Sathe – Dev’s opportunist colleague and Pradhuman Singh as Dev’s confidante in his office.
Omi Vaidya as Dev’s boss marketing toilet paper in India, is stereotyped and though he does offer some seriously funny moments, he lacks lustre.
Neelima Azeem in a guest appearance as Dolly Verma’s mother is wasted. And Urmila Matondkar in a forgettable item number is an eye sore.
Overall, with elegant production values the film does rise over its absurdness and is worth a watch.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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