She wears all the costumes of modernity but carries a streak of attitude that shoves her back into dark medieval age. To her, do you know the best way to grind a rival into dust? Hard work? No. perseverance? No. staying at it? Don’t be naïve. All that is for losers. The foolproof way to make sure you stay on the top is, cue appropriate ghostly sound effects, kaala jaadu.
Or at least that’s what the desperate Shanaya( Basu) believes, when new heroine-on-the-block Sanjana(Gupta) starts to get ahead. Nothing that friend and lover and director of her films Aditya(Hashmi) can do is enogh to console her.Shanya wants Sanjana out of her way at any cost. And she finds an answer in black magic.
Bhatt is an old hand at horror, going back and forth in time, doing victrian and contemporary, and, on occasion, medieval. Here, he sticks to the here and now,making bollywoo the backdrop: the film industry,going by scores of unpublished, ear-scorching accounts, is the place where anything can happen. So we are quite prepared o believe that Shanaya’s bitterness and envy has caused her to come unhinged, and her passes at the guy who hands her the tools for sanjana’s destruction, lead to a couple of shivery moments in the first half.
The second half goes just the way so many fils do: down the chute. Or, in the instance of raaz 3, in that ‘in between place which are inhabited by prêt-aatmas. Right there, the little bit of frisson that the film managed to garner vanishes,maybe in that self-same place. Out come all the sadhus and babas with their mantras, and the bhagwan ki murti, and it all boils down to the same old battle against good and evil, borrowing from older horror topes from here and there.
Not only are the lines unintentionally hilarious, the characters are too. Especially the supporting cast, which ranges from a psychiatrist; a sorcerer with knowledge of kaalu jaadu whose pupil meets with a nasty ends, a murderous aatma who has the hots for a live woman, and so on. Excuse me while I choke.
As to the main leads, Bipasha being bad should have led to something. But neither she nor the relative newbie Esha Gupta, who teeters between getting somewhere with saying her lines and flubbing them, are anything but gym-toned clothes-horses. Poor Hashmi pendulums between both, and tries hard to look all serious and buttoned down. But hold, may be he is not so por at all as he gets to smooch not one but two lovelies. And that, dear readers is not a raaz at all.
Vashistha Ray.
Well, i have not seen the movie and really don't intend to. Even some good movies test my patience. Going by your tautly commented review i don't think my energy and interest would last through the film. May be it is my preconceived judgment, but I regard this movie as a ludicrous improvement on Ramsay Brothers’ movies. Although with unkemptly handled plot and insipid music (going by the Bhatt camp’s standard of music) this film is a creepy success. This can be attributed to the reluctantly increasing fan base of Imran Hashmi which is hardly being discussed or boasted of. His fan base, especially, is consists of the college goers. Imran Hashmi catches the attention with his portrayal of vulnerability in his face which borders on between ruggedness and innocence. His waywardness and virtuousness find the meeting point in his acting which lends realness to the character.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this review I went to reread your review of Ragini MMS a film which excited you so much whereas this Raaz3 disappoints you with its vapidness. What I gather is that spooky genre of films attracts you to write. This review sounds quite genuine and legitimately handled although you dissuaded yourself to write on its technical flaws which I suppose may have been of less importance when the overall feel of scruffiness of the movie itself is overpowering. Good, you are getting a connoisseur of films and your reviews of films become even more readable because of the aptness of language and its fluid narration