I am somewhat conflicted as the movie ended. I am a fan of Shoojit Sircar, and this movie has all the visual elements which make me like his work (he is the creative producer for this), but it also lacked the finesse to handle a complicated subject like sexual assault in 2016.

Three girls willingly go enjoy dinner and drinks with some male acquaintances. The guys presume a lot more than they should which results in Minal (Taapasee Pannu) hitting one of them on the forehead with a bottle. This is set up in the first few minutes of the film. Then the movie ventures into the court proceedings and slowly the narrative becomes progressively flimsier and a bit louder.

Unfortunately, Shoojit's inputs probably were limited at how to shoot Amitabh Bacchan still shots. I still remember the visuals from Piku where Amitabh is holding the Sitar and the camera moves around or when he is in all the Kolkata streets, it was superb. Those moments are there, but sadly, the movie is could not be about that. There is much serious tone to the film.

Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury builds the initial scenes magnificently. The terror of what-if comes out brilliantly in every action of all the three girls. They know what has happened and there is fear that it is going to catch up to them. This looming threat is suspensefully crafted. The fear is in the unknown. From those early scenes, I had higher hopes from the film. When the court proceedings started, the film started becoming superficial and loud. It also goes on moralising beyond the facts of the case. In 2016, we expect much more mature handling of such sensitive subjects. Watching this in 2020, I remember Taapasee's other movie, Thappad. That had such thoughtful handling of a conflict. Having seen that before, when I watched Pink, I wasn't very happy. The build-up had a lot to offer but the potential remained unrealised.

Amitabh is his usual imposing self. He presents a tired, retired lawyer with ease. Piyush Mishra cycles between being an obnoxious over-the-top lawyer, which might remind you of Tareekh pe Tareekh, to a well-executed presentation of a stereotypical mentality of a many in the society. I also felt that even his character could have been elevated a bit more as a worthy adversary to Amitabh's, which does not happen. [spoiler]To cap it all, Angad Bedi is forced to almost recite a A Few Good Men or Shaurya style tirade towards the end, which did not help much.[/spoiler]

Overall, the film is still worth a watch for the early scenes and the creative inputs of Shoojir Sircar.

**NO is a complete sentence in itself. Period.**

There are movies that have great plot lines, there are movies that have great actors who make the movie great, there are movies which have great directors. But this is a movie with a great message and one that our Indian society needs to listen, believe and enact upon.

Incidents happen and are forgotten, people speak and they go quiet, mass movements are organized and they fade. But our mindset has not really changed. We still judge a woman's character by the way she dresses, the way she starts to feel comfortable with someone, by the time she steps in and out of home, by her choice of consuming alcohol or not, and the list can grow pretty long.

PINK tries to make that exact same point that any sane society believes in, that we cannot have different set of rules to judge someone's character. One gender cannot be judged by some specific set of rules that do not apply to the other gender. In fact, it isn't even about the gender, judging anyone's character is a crime we all commit when none of us can measure our own selves with the same set of rules in the same scale of balance and come out of it pure and serene.

Now, going towards the movie's review, this movie shouldn't be judged by it's story line, direction, editing, cinematography, or the acting. All of which were commendable in their own way so as to put through the point that the movie was trying to present to the audience precisely. Rather, it should be judged by the fact that our society deeply suffers from this disease of judging a woman's character and act with her in a manner according to the outcome of our judgement as we see fit. The part where Rajveer's character says that everybody present in the courtroom would feel the same way bout girls like these sums up the thought process of a great part of our society.

Amitabh Bachchan's character's expressions in the end personifies the sorry state our country would feel at times like these. When we have to issue a manual about the woman's safety in our society. The points mentioned by Deepak Sehgal that should be there in the manual are cruel but true.

I can go on and on about the greatness and seriousness of the point that the director has tried to put across, but it'd all be for nothing if we'd feel that it was another good movie that made a good point.

We need to change the way we grow up our boys and nurture them with the idea of respecting a woman's modesty and understand the firmness, completeness and absoluteness of the word NO. I wish dearly that I witness this change in our society in this lifetime where movies like PINK are no longer NECESSARY to make us realize that the way we treat women in our somewhat modern society, sometimes, is inhumane.

Going away from the preachy tone of this review I'd like to mention that the acting of all the characters, Amitabh Bachchan, Tapsee Pannu, and the other girls, Kirti and Andrea in fact, especially was just what was required, nothing less nothing more. It was believable and you could feel their helplessness. The direction by Aniruddha Roy Chaudhary was really good.

All in all, for me, this is more than your good , bad, average Bollywood movie. Seemed like a message to be thought and enacted upon, by Shoojit Sircar