Ninety Hours is a countdown. It is the deadline set for Vincent George (Tota Roychoudhury), a contract killer, by his client, Rishin (Jishu Sengupta) to kill someone. Incidentally, Rishin is himself the target assigned to Vincent. Sounds crazy? Debut-director Saugata Ray Barman makes the idea plausible and brings it across on screen effectively in the second half. He drags his footage too much in the first half to introduce the five characters, which affects the second half, taking away the nail-biting suspense the film offered scope to explore.
Rishin has everything laid out on a golden platter. He is a successful chartered accountant running a firm he has inherited from his father, Mayuri (Swastika Mukherjee), a beautiful and devoted wife, is a successful television newsreader and has an affluent lifestyle. He is depressed with a life that has no struggle or adventure in it. So, he tries to inject some adventure on his own by hiring the slick and sophisticated contract killer to finish him off. Why the 90-hour deadline? Because Rishin plans to foil Vincent’s plans to bump him, racing him every step of the way, and thus turning his life into a constant cat-and-mouse chase filled with precise timing, clever detours and strategic planning. Vincent is impressed but is not about to give up, as Rishin has already paid him the full money in advance. The film closes with a gun-toting confrontation between Rishin and Vincent five minutes before the countdown is to end. It is left to Vincent’s girlfriend Payal (Manjushree Ganguly) to shoot him down and get shot by him. Six months later, Rishin picks up the telephone to respond to a call in the middle of the night. The voice at the other end makes his face crinkle into a smile. Another adventure has begun.

Technical Expertise
The film needed a tighter pace, without wasting footage on the needless item number by Yana Gupta that adds neither gloss, nor any USP to what could have been a chilling script. The script’s strength lies in its concentrating on the characters rather than on the narrative. Tota and Jishu have done full justice to their roles, though Tota’s is the author-backed one. He does it in style, with those rippling muscles in an exercised body, spelling out an exception in male machismo within Bengali cinema. The girls are also-rans. The songs are good but uncalled for. 90 Hours is watch-worthy provided you can sit through the first half, which is bearable.

Verdict
Three stars for the brilliant acting cast, specially Tota Roychoudhury’s performance.