Movie Title: “NAINA”
RATING: & 1/2 (OUT OF )
Review by Ranju Anthony
India, 2005
Censor Board Certification: A
Language: Hindi
Genre: Horror
(Wide Release)
Director: Shripal Morakhia
Producer: iDream Productions
Cast: Urmila Matondkar, Anuj Sawhney, Shweta Kunnoor and others
Music: Saleem-Sulaiman
The trailers were stupendously mounted on all major TV channels. It had that slick look of any major international product. Alas, whosoever said that hype can never replace substance was SO RIGHT. To be fair, the movie begins with great aplomb.
The story unfolds in London, where a cornea transplant is taking place on Naina (Urmila Matondkar), a young hapless pretty girl, who has been blind throughout her life due to a freak accident. Post operation, Naina starts seeing the world around her albeit, along with people who are already dead. ‘I SEE DEAD PEOPLE’ sounds familiar eh. As happens in such movies, no one believes Naina’s predicament and she herself (with able support of her sidekick boyfriend) ventures out to locate the ill-fated owner (‘Khemi’ played by Shweta Kunnoor) of the cornea, who apparently, possessed certain supernatural powers. As Naina dwells deeper in this mess, she understands her catch-22 situation of being unable to change a given situation in-spite of knowing it before-hand (a-la the Thai Horror flick ‘The Eye’).
Morakhia attempts the Alfred Hitchcockian way of telling a spooky story but fells flat. ‘Naina’ reaffirms the fact that technical finesse isn’t sufficient to elevate a mediocre project; what is required however, is a good storytelling technique which is non-existent in this show. Moreover, movie goers are far smarter than yesteryears and can easily locate portions which are direct rip-off of Hollywood projects like ‘Sixth Sense’.
But not all is lost and there are some niceties involved; especially in the acting department. Urmila is fabulous as usual and one feels sorry for her Herculean effort going waste. Anuj Sawhney, essentially a B-grade import is also mercifully controlled in an awfully sketched out character. Others are passable.
To sum up the picture; all PULP no credible FICTION. Better luck next time Mr. Morakhia.