Samrat and Co

Plot

Dimpy Singh (Madalsa Sharma), approaches Samrat Tilakdhari (Rajeev Khandelwal), a private investigator, with a strange case. Their garden got ruined for reasons that appear natural but are not known; leading horticulturists have examined the fading plants but they have not been able to identify the probable reason. Further, her father's favorite horse died; once again the reason for the pre-mature death remains a mystery. That's not the end; Dimpy’s father Mahendra Pratap Singh (Girish Karnad), otherwise a very strong and balanced man, has been experiencing deteriorating health. All these aspects when combined makes the case sound weird and that grabs the attention of Samrat.

Samrat along with his assistant friend, Chakradhar Pandey (Gopal Datt), visits the huge estate of Mahendra Pratap Singh. As he starts investigating, he discovers lots of mysterious facts. The story progresses when a murder takes place in the house, which leads to a series of events, complicating things for Samrat. Every character around seems to be hiding something.

Cast

Soundtrack

All lyrics written by Mithoon; Music composed by Mithoon and Ankit Tiwari.

Reception

Official theatrical trailer was released on 18 March 2014 at a suburban multiplex in Mumbai. The trailer received mixed reviews. One review said: Rajeev Khandelwal the main protagonist for Samrat & Co. very happily copies Benedict Cumberbatch, the British actor portraying the character of Sherlock Holmes in the hit series by the same name. Rajeev is desperately trying to be cool and stylish, something that does not come naturally to him and does not look good on him. Another review said: "The industry and fans by large, have found the trailer gripping and true to its claims of the film being ‘dilchasp’ and intriguing. Known for his strong acting histrionics and intelligence, Rajeev Khandelwal’s suave and new look as Samrat and his dialogue delivery is also being immensely appreciated, bringing the actor into a new avatar in Bollywood". Strangely, when the director of the film narrated Rajeev Khandelwal the script, he did not narrate the entire script, but did it only till the climax scene. The director Kaushik Ghatak told Rajeev that he would tell him the climax only if he came on board. Once Rajeev agreed to do the film, Kaushik kept his promise of narrating the climax to him, but, to his surprise, Rajeev did not want to hear it and requested him not to. Telling us his reasons for doing that, Rajeev said, "The script had been so gripping that I decided to play Samrat in my head, trying to actually solve the case while shooting the film.". Samrat and Co. received mostly negative reviews. Shubhra Gupta from the Indian Express rated the movie 1 star out of 5 and said "The script allows for lots of silliness, and clueless characters, and sad clues." Rediff gave half star to the movie. Rahul Desai from Mumbai mirror gave 1.5 stars out of 5. Taran Adarsh rated the movie 2.5 out of 5. The movie was released in 566 theaters.

It had a Poor Box Office collection record merely collecting 2 crores in its run.