Ittefaq (2017 film)

Vikram Sethi (Sidharth Malhotra) is an acclaimed British writer of Indian descent. On the launch of his third book in Mumbai, he finds his publisher wife Katherine dead in their hotel room. The police suspect him so he flees by car. As the cops give chase, his car overturns and he escapes with injuries, taking shelter in a nearby apartment. Maya (Sonakshi Sinha), a young housewife who lives there, spots a police car outside and rushes there for help.

The police find Vikram next to the body of her lawyer husband, Shekhar, who has been murdered. They also find burnt photographs in the trash. Dev Verma (Akshaye Khanna), an officer investigating the double murder, interrogates Vikram and Maya.

According to Vikram's account, he fled from the police because he feared he would be framed for his wife's murder. He found Maya at her door and asked for help. He added that his wife did not attend the book launch, as she was unwell and took medicines for a heart ailment. Vikram entered Maya's flat and said that she attempted to seduce him. Maya introduced Chirag, who entered her house saying he was her husband. When Vikram saw a wallpaper photo on her PC and realized Chirag was not Maya's husband, Chirag struck him with a candle-holder and Vikram lost consciousness. Upon waking, he found Shekhar's body next to him. While in custody Vikram was shown removing his shoe as if his foot is sore or shoe is pinching him.

According to Maya's account, she found an injured Vikram at her door, asking for help. She let him in only to find out from the news that the police are looking for him for the murder of his wife. Vikram whipped out a knife and overpowered her, and began searching for documents at Shekhar's desk when she turned a visiting Chirag away, with whom she confessed of having an extramarital affair. Around midnight, her husband returned and struggled to free her from Vikram. Maya rushed outside to a police vehicle for help. By the time she returned, Vikram had killed her husband with a candle-holder.

Meanwhile, the police find that a gang rape victim named Sandhya committed suicide recently because Vikram had written his third book about that incident and, hoping to prevent his third book from being a failure, he had leaked her identity to generate buzz. Examination of Katherine's body reveals that she had died of a heart attack.

The forensic team informs Dev that Shekhar was attacked on the head by someone who was at least 6 feet tall. The police initially suspect Vikram as his height is 6’1". However, it is found that the burnt photographs were those of Maya and Chirag, who is also about 6 feet tall. The photographs had been taken by a detective hired by Shekhar. The police eventually conclude that Vikram's account is true and Maya and Chirag had killed Shekhar when he confronted them with the photos. Moreover, there was no mud on Shekhar's shoes at the time of his death. It had rained at 11 pm and there was mud on the streets. Vikram had stated that Shekhar had come home at 7:30, hence his account was believed to be true whereas Maya's account of her husband returning home at 12 am was labelled false as a result. Vikram is deemed innocent and released from custody. He cremates his wife's body, and Maya and Chirag are arrested and charged with Shekhar's murder.

At home, Dev is reading Vikram's second book when his wife Meera (Mandira Bedi) spoils that the protagonist dies of drug overdose. Dev rushes to the forensic doctor to check if Vikram's wife could have died from an overdose of the medicine she had been taking for her heart. They discover that the capsules had been tampered with and the dose was made three times higher than normal, which caused Katherine to have a fatal heart attack.

Dev calls Vikram while the latter is about to catch a flight back to London. On the phone, Vikram confesses to having killed Katherine and Shekhar. He killed Katherine because she was threatening to charge him for the suicide of Sandhya. Shekhar was the lawyer working with her to file a case against him. He fled to Shekhar's house to destroy the legal documents of the case. When Maya went out to seek help, he killed her husband and stumbled across the photographs with her lover. He partially burnt them and threw them in the trash, banking on the conviction that the police would find the ominously burnt, adulterous pictures, creating a convincing story to dupe the police, which would then insinuate the inquisitory suspicion that it was Maya, in conjunction with Chirag who had orchestrated the murder of her husband Shekhar in order to conceal her affair. He also switched Shekar's muddy shoes with his own. He tells Dev that he has already cremated his wife's body; thus there is no evidence left. Dev decides to catch Vikram and punish him even if he has to take an illegal action to do so. However, Vikram leaves for London on his flight as Dev watches helplessly.

• Akshaye Khanna as Dev Verma
• Sidharth Malhotra as Vikram Sethi
• Sonakshi Sinha as Maya Sinha
• Pavail Gulati as Chirag
• Mandira Bedi as Meera Verma, Dev's wife
• Sameer Sharma as Shekhar Sinha, Maya's husband
• Sanyukta Timsina as Sandhya
• Kimberly Louisa McBeath as Katherine Sethi
• Himanshu Kohli as Gautam Gulati, a cop reporting to Dev
• Ajay Jadhav as Tambe
• Godaan Kumar as night security guard
• Rishabh Nigam as Shravan
• Arpit Sharma as forensic expert

The song ''Ittefaq Se'' was recreated by Tanishk Bagchi from the song Raat Baaki Baat Baaki from the film Namak Halal, originally composed by Bappi Lahiri and sung by Asha Bhosle, Shashi Kapoor and Lahiri.

• Ittefaq at IMDb
• Ittefaq at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ittefaq at Bollywood Hungama