I thought the premise of Kaal sounded very interesting - Jim Corbett National Park as backdrop, man eating tigers in a jungle etc. the movie is based on a pretty interesting concept but it is really sad to see how it has been completely botched up in execution...
first of all the beginning is really slow and stupid and so much time is wasted on Offensive Oberoi, his whimpering girlfriend and other stupid friends. In the first 20 mins itself you begin to tire of the movie!
secondly, none of the characters - john abraham, esha deol, lara dutta, vivek or his friends are endearing in the least. they cant establish any connect with the audience and frankly, nobody will care whether they live or die. in oberoi’s case, you almost cant wait for the tiger/demon to gobble him up and get him out of the screen.
thirdly, there are just too many death sequences. drivers, caretakers, watchmen, all non-stars die soon, one after another. it ends up being a gorefest rather than delivering any spooks/chills.
the end gets wrapped up too quickly. the stars in an impossible to win predicament and then they just basically run away. it just sounds so silly.
plus there are many things that just dont make sense. like the cat that gets run over by viveks car and ends up inside the bonnet.. the fact that vivek would just leave his darling lexus by some roadside dhaba and forget about it.. or that lara dutta is on a stretcher one minute and running frantically the rest.
all performances range between bad and terrible, incl ajay devgan, john abraham. even the girls’ makeups and costumes are awful.
the only redeeming part of the movie is a shot of three tigers, but alas its too short and not even done properly for impact.
soham seriously should reconsider his movie career. or maybe this was too ambitious a project for a first time director to attempt. Karan Johar should have refused to associate with this movie because he has diluted the dharma productions brand equity by releasing such a badly-made film.