What has happened to Bollywood?
No singing, no dancing just a starightforward gritty fast-paced storyline with a bagful of twists.
The shame of Kahaani is that it has not been marketed to a non-Bollywood audience.
Frankly, any film fan who happily watches sub-titled movies and enjoys thrillers would lap this up.
But, despite a very busy screen at Nottingham Cineworld tonight, Kahaani is not scheduled past its opening week.
It is a pity. Sujoy Ghosh's film is enthralling from its opening when a gas attack wipes out 100 people on the Calcutta (or is that Kolkata?) metro.
The plot then moves on two years when a very pregnant Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan) arrives in the city looking for her missing husband.
The thing is her other half looks uncannily like the number one suspect in the gas massacre.
At first, the police scarcely raise an eyebrow over her case but as she insists on pursuing the truth so more links to the metro outrage are revealed.
Along the way, police and government corruption become central to the plot.
To say more would give the game away but there are a coupe,of observations worth making.
Firstly, it was something of a revelation to see a very pregnant heroine. Waddling unsteadily around the back streets of Calcutta, she was still fully focused on the task of finding her husband, dead or alive.
Secondly, Balan is surely one of Bollywood's best actresses. She was rightly nominated for a gong at the Asian Film Awards for her performance in Dirty Picture last year and here she keeps up the standard.
Anyway, don't just take my word for how good Kahaani is: last week it was praised as 'brilliant' by Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan.
Maybe not brilliant but very good and of high enough quality to make me wonder why Sujoy Ghosh has directed so few films.
And it certainly deserves wider acclaim and more time at the cinemas.
Laughs: none
Jumps: two
Vomit: yes, one scene, I'm afraid.
Nudity: nope
Overall rating: 8/10