Rating: na Presenter: Swadeshi Entertainment Producers: Sameer Gaikwad, Director: Shivdarshan – Amit Story, Screenplay: Shivdarshan – Amit Cast: Sameer Dharmadhikari, Madhura Velankar, Abhijit Satam, Vijay Kenkre Movie Review by: Saurabh Karnik

Amazing crockery, crystal bowls, exclusive dishes… but salty fruit salad… or spicy Puran-Poli! What would be your reaction over this kind of dinner? Exactly same reaction came to my mind after watching Canvas. Excellent music, impressive camera, extra ordinary editing, sound story…. But faulty presentation doesn’t make the movie as impactful as it could be.

The movie is based upon murder mystery. Shrikant Dharmadhikari (Shrirang Deshmukh) – a well educated person is killed brutally by some unknown person. But his murder becames a part of serial killing when 2 other persons also get killed in the same manner. ACP Aditya Kulkarni (Samir Dharmadhikari) – an investing officer finds a canvas near every dead body and he finds a clue in the picture ported on the canvas. The film rolls on to show how Aditya solves the murder mystery and catches the killer.

The movie has decent star cast like Samir Dharmadhikari, Madhura Velankar, Vijay Kenkre and everybody has played their role quite well. Especially, Samir’s role in a Marathi movie after so many days, is welcome. Akshay Pendse’s short role definitely catches audience attention and gets appreciation. Vijay Kenkre’s on screen performance after a long time , is another attraction of the movie.

Marathi movies are getting technically strong day by day and Canvas is no exception to it. Shivdarshan Sable has provided extra ordinary background music to maintain mysterious environment in the movie.
Cinematography, camera and lights are also remarkable and worth studying for newcomers and critics.

But unfortunately overall impression of the movie is not that striking because of slow pace of the movie and casual dialogues, that really failed to make the movie remarkable. Shivdarshan-Amit, who have handled story, screenplay and direction have done a decent job in their first attempt. But unfortunately, the viewers are not bothered about it. They look for a simple good movie and Canvas has failed to fulfill their expectations. Dialogues are used very casually and do not suit to the situation. Many a times serious dialogues during a particular situation make the audiences laugh. Director has taken too much of time to establish the murders and reveal the suspense, which is unnecessary and distracting. Movie continues for almost next half an hour even after revealing the suspense. The same movie would have been more impressive, if it had been cut short to ¾th time.
It is a welcome change that Shivdarshan-Amit are daring to make movies over different topics. It is a good trend for Marathi film industry. A bit more professional approach would have made a a big difference. Canvas is otherwise an impressive film at their first attempt and need to be appreciated by Marathi film lovers in order to encourage new filmmakers. Then only thing we expect is a better deal for such striking Marathi movies, with a different touch.