aatma
Director: Deepak Ramsay
Cast: Neha, Kapil Jhaveri, Mukesh Tiwari, Amreina, Usha Bachani, Sadashiv Amrapurkar
2.5/10
Well, one certainly learnt a lot about ghosts. Who knew that they always called or rang the doorbell when they wanted to come in? Or that ghosts had this ardent belief in the Indian Penal Code. They would rather possess the wife of the doctor who gave a false medical certificate first and then hunt out their murderers. The story was simple enough; half of the time the ghost chased villains and in the other half heroes chased semi-nude heroines.
After all this crisis about The Da Vinci Code one anticipated only films like Raja Harishchandra to pass the censors, but the amount of sleaze allowed in this U-rated movie rekindles hope. The performances were all uniformly ghastly. One feels a bit sad about Neha; after a debut like Kareeb ,this was shocking. All in all the Ramsays are still trying to mix terror with titillation and still failing miserably.
P.S. The sets were better than their previous horror films.
Sunayani Ganguly
Aparichit
Director: Shankar
Cast: Vikkram, Sada, Vivek, Prakashraj, Sourabh Shukla, (Yana Gupta)
5.5/10
Vikkram isn’t a superstar for nothing. His performance in Aparichit tells us why. But watch it only if you can bear the extremes that make a South film. This is a dubbed version of Shankar’s Anniyan and everything about the film is much, much larger than life. From Puran to psychoanalysis, SFX to simple storytelling, the plot weaves in all of it.
A righteous man, who feels extremely disturbed by the wrongs done all around him also carries the scar of his sister’s death due to the callousness of people. It caused multiple personality disorder, giving rise to several alter-egoes in him like Aparichit, one violently strong man who is out to punish the wrongdoers. The punishments are horrible death meted out following the Garur Puran. On the other hand, on being ignored by Sada, this originally timid character develops yet another personality, of a flamboyant and charming hero to woo her.
Aparichit reminds us of several films like Aks, Hindustani, Nayak. Like most South films it does its social duties, but is excessively preachy. The action sequences are well-coordinated and elaborate, the violence featured is blood-curling, the dance choreographed are too colourful, and all are SFX driven. Talk of performances, everyone from the side artistes to the sidekicks are fitting.
Madhuparna Das
