The Tashkent Files

The Tashkent Files is an Indian Hindi-language conspiracy thriller film about the death of former Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. Written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, it stars Shweta Basu Prasad, Naseeruddin Shah and Mithun Chakraborty in leading roles. The film released on 12th April 2019 to mostly favorable reviews from critics and was widely deemed to be politically motivated in light of the concurrent 2019 general elections.

Cast

 * Naseeruddin Shah as PKR Natrajan
 * Mithun Chakraborty as Shyam Sunder Tripathi
 * Shweta Basu Prasad as Raagini Phule
 * Mandira Bedi as Indira Joseph Roy
 * Pallavi Joshi as Aiysha Ali Shah
 * Rajesh Sharma as Omkar Kashyap
 * Vinay Pathak as Mukhtar
 * Pankaj Tripathi as Gangaram Jha
 * Vishwa Mohan Badola as Justice Kurian Abraham
 * Prakash Belawadi as GK Anantha Suresh
 * Achint Kaur as Mrs. Natarajan
 * Yusuf Hussain
 * Prashant Gupta as Vivendra Pratap Singh Rana
 * Ankur Rathee as Imran Qureshi

Production
Vivek Agnihotri the director of the film announced the film in January 2018. Commenting on the story of the film he stated that The Tashkent Files is going to be country's first crowd-sourced thriller. He further stated that the film will be made after doing research work on Shastriji as it will be an apolitical film about a political leader. The filming began in January 2018. In February 2018 he invited from the public any information, book, link or memory related to Lal Bahadur Shastri’s mysterious death in Tashkent to help him solve the 'decades old enigma' surrounding the death of former prime minister of India. On 6 January 2019 Agnihotri giving details of his film announced the tentative release date.

Marketing and release
Releasing first look poster of the film on 19 March 2019, the release date of the film was announced as 12 April 2019. On 25 March 2019, Zee Studios unveiled the official trailer on YouTube.

Critical response
Many critics noted that the film was probably inspired by the Hollywood cult-classic 12 Angry Men and looked at different versions of the truth. Actor, Mithun Chakraborty and actress Shweta Basu Prasad garnered rave reviews for their acting.

Rachit Gupta of The Times of India rated the film with two and a half stars out of five and praised it's theme but lamented the lack of talent in its characters, despite a star-studded cast. Criticizing its direction, story-telling and songs, he concluded that:- "It also doesn’t help that the final slide of the movie tells the audience that the authenticity of all the facts displayed in the film cannot be verified." Devesh Sharma of Filmfare gives the film two and half stars out of five and noted the film to be a 'melodramatic' episode with loud and over the top acting coupled with bombastic dialogues. He further notes the film to be biased against a certain political party and that it ought have been launched after the national elections, which were running concurrently. Prashant Sisodia of NDTV India gave the film 3 out 5 stats whilst Shashank Shekhar of Desimartini gave the film 4.5 out 5.

Rahul Desai writing for Film Companion rated the film with one star out of five. Noting it to be a 'PhD. in whataboutery', he noted the film to be "not informed enough to be a documentary, not balanced enough to be a docudrama and not smart enough to be an investigative thriller." Writing for Scroll.in, Nandini Ramnath noted it to be a politically motivated film that did not have any rigor and failed to be an effective conspiracy thriller. Saibal Chatterjee, writing for NDTV rated the film with half star out of five and noted it to be an example of Google search film-making and concludes "Well, the actors may not be trash, but their performances scrape the bottom of the barrel. And the film? If you still haven't got it, it is JUNK." A review over India Today rated it one out of five stars and noted it to be a politically motivated film that did not have any logic and might be easily dispensed with. A review over The Hindu noted it to be an ideological slideshow that exploited Shastri's death to attack left, secular and socialist ideologies and institutions and though based on an engaging topic, was a 'hotch-potch of hearsay, juvenile arguments' that ultimately lend to utter confusion rather than any conviction. Another review over News18 India rated it one out of five stars and noted it to be a politically motivated film with unconvincing arguments and made for a dull watch. A review in the The First Post asserted it to be a politically motivated film and rated it two out of five stars. Noting Agnihotri to neither have the finesse nor the potency to sketch a conspiracy thriller, the reviewer deemed it to be a cheap trick, that was high on hysteria but lacked logic amidst a focus-less frenzied storytelling that did not venture beyond the realms of Google. A review in The Indian Express deemed it to be an ideal fiction film for the 'post-truth, fake news era' that was politically motivated in entirety and consisted of a series of eye-roll moments with unintentionally hilarious dialogues. The Print reviewed it to be a shoddy jab at film-making that harnessed a mish-mash of unformed characters and incomplete plots whilst lacking factual logic. Jyoti Sharma Bawa, reviewing for The Hindustan Times rated it one out of five stars whilst noting it to be disgusting political propaganda that hardly contained any truth and presented nothing new beyond the realms of an internet-crawl. Bollywood Hungama gave one and a half stars out of five. Anusha Iyengar, reviewing for Times Now gave two out of five stars, praising it's story but criticizing it's over-the-top dramatization and attempt at storytelling, that was amateurish. A review over Arre.co criticized the film as an endless cycle of whataboutery, directed by a dedicated by a historical revisionist, which was nothing but an assault on common sense. Manavi Kapur, reviewing the film at Business Standard, noted it to be shoddily written, that was not even worthy enough for a daytime opera slot. Mid day.com gave one and a half stars out of five and noted it to be a poorly researched dull work, that seemed to have been wholly derived from internet and esp. social media. Shilajit Mitra, reviewing for The New Indian Express remarked it to be an exhausting head-spin of a movie, that went increasingly weird with the passage of time. Deeming it to be a poorly executed political propaganda, he rated one and a half stars out of five. Stutee Ghosh of The Quint reviewed it to be a prejudiced, amateurish and cringe-worthy film with an uninspiring storytelling that banked on crowd-sourced research and ultimately failed to engage the viewer. She rated one star out of five.

Soundtrack
The music of the film is composed by Rohit Sharma while the lyrics are penned by Aazad, Rohit Sharma and Vivek Agnihotri.