I guess I ended up watching the movie, to see if Shyamalan ( director, script writer) could do justice to his earlier sixth sense. The fact that he is an indian is purely incidental :-)
The movie is typical shyamalan. The story is good, you want to know what is the end, and you sit strained at the edge of the seat, ready to miss your next heartbeat. It is suspense very subtle way, all the way.
The only shortcoming Shyamalan would face throughout his movie career is to continue giving these ’miss a heartbeat scenes’.
The story is decently original, though if you are an avid tv serial watcher, you would have seen a similar story.
In the idiot box - the sole survivor is a girl who becomes friends with these passengers in her coupe, and exactly a year later from the day of the train crash, the other passengers in her coupe return to take her...saying that she was left by mistake and its her time’’. The idiot box story is inspired by one of those annonymous childhood stories that all of us used to exchange when the electricity used to run out, to scare each other.
Shyamalan’s script is a step further weaving the surreal ( comic) land of Samuel Jackson with the real world of Bruce Willis.
It basically shows how two extremes could exist in the real world, like the comic world.
Its a story of how the arch villain ( Samuel Jackson) spends his entire life time fantasising about finding the other extreme , his match the superhero ( Bruce Willis).
And with little other to do in his life due to his handicap ( has the disorder which breaks bones at the smallest of strain), he turns destructive in his search.
I liked the ending. It was so comic book. ANd thats what it was meant to be, so it did not look too melodramatic.....and samuel jackson executing the way, only he can.....’’And they call me Mr. Glass’’
Was glued to the seat throughout, to a large extent because of the movie, and because ( and this is what I consider personally a drawback in a Shyamalan movie) the movie is entirely shot with almost dawn to dusk sequences, or even if its a day its a dark, rainy, overcast with clouds day.
As a result the visibility is a factor that somehow constrains the plot, not however effecting it. Its the irony that the same lack of light also makes it more eerie. But I would opt for a 6th sense more light, clearer eerieness, than an eerieness where one has to concentrate on everything from the left corner of the screen to the right, so as to not miss anything.
The music score was brilliantly subtle and suited the mood of the movie.
Am wondering, the next Shyamalan ( not the raiders of the lost arc....), an original shyamalan, what else can he do to make an eerie’er ( if there is such a word ) movie.