RGV sprinkles cold water on Nithin’s hopes

Ram Gopal Varma had brought several hit films in Bollywood including Rangeela, Satya and Sarkar. However, he had a curious instinct to frighten the audiences with his films. In order to satiate his desire, he brought up several films with horror and thrill in the backdrop, but could not succeed in any of his attempts. In fact, for his recent release ‘Phoonk’ he announced Rs 5 lakh reward to those who watch the film alone without any fear. But finally, it proved to be a big dud. Without giving up his attempts, he brought out another film again with horror backdrop called ‘Agyaat’ whose Telugu version is ‘Adavi’ was produced by Nattikumar on the banner of Visakha Talkies. The entire film was shot in a forest, somewhere in Sri Lanka.

Sujan (Nithin) is an assistant director and his mentor JJ (Harvey Rosemeyer) is a director. JJ always thinks that he should bring out a film on the lines of Steven Spielberg. He prepares a horror subject and Murty (Ishrat Ali) comes forward to produce the film. They zero in on Sharman (Gautam Rode) as hero and Aasha (Priyanka Kothari) as heroine. The twist here is that Sujan’s assistant Sameera (Rasika Duggal), who was the script writer had a crush with Sujan, but the latter sincerely and secretly loves Aasha. All the unit members set for the location in a remote forest area. Action director and stunt master Raka (Ravi Kale) and cinematographer Lakshman (Ishteyak Khan) accompany them. After they reach the location and start shooting, the camera gives some problem and it takes at least three days to replace it. In order to pass the three days’ time, the crew with the help of Sethu (Joy Fernandes) decide to go deep inside the forest to enjoy the nature. Sethu knows the entire forest and he takes the unit members to a beautiful lake.

Unfortunately Sethu had a gory death and no other knew the route to return to their destination. Trying their luck they start moving towards a vague direction. After Sethu, JJ also dies under mysterious circumstances atop a tall tree. As the unit members start running to save their lives, Lakshman gets injured. He sacrifices his life by committing suicide to make the other members move out from there. However, Sharman and Raka start fighting with each other on personal egos and Sharman leaves Raka at the behest of Sujan. But Raka turns mad and kills Sharman with a boulder. Surprisingly, Raka also dies mysteriously right in front of others’ eyes.

But for Sujan, Sameera and Aasha, everyone dies in the forest. Sameera, after running for a cover for life for sometime and gets exhausted. She too commits suicide to help Sujan and Aasha to escape from death. Did they survive? Who was behind the deaths? What is the hidden force that was killing everyone? All these questions remained unanswered leaving the audiences in a quandary. However, the director gave a hint to the audiences that a sequel is likely to come to unwind the secrets.

PERFORMANCE:

Though Nithin tried to showcase his eight-pack body with a lean physique, he had not much role to play in the film. He had very little scope to perform on the screen. However, the director made good use of his eight-pack body during song sequences. Unfortunately, the choreography of songs also is not very impressive as the director and cinematographer concentrated most on the oomph of the heroine. Priyanka Kothari, who made her debut through ‘James’ from the same director, again featured in his latest film. She did not show any inhibition to the skin show and appeared almost in bikinis in two romantic songs. The director banked mostly on her glamour for the commercial success of the movie. It was her photographs and dance sequence photographs featured on the wall posters to attract the mass audiences. Of the remaining artistes Gautam Rode, Ravi Kale gave impressive performance. All the others are okay and did justice to their roles.

TECHNICAL:

Ram Gopal Varma is known for penning a good screenplay and he once again proved his skills in that department all through the film. Though there are some scenes which are nagging, the movement of the entire story depended on the screenplay, in the absence of any story worth mentioning. Because of the screenplay, the director was able to capture the attention of the audiences to some extent at least. Next comes the music. Neither the tunes given for the movie nor the background score are not that great. Camera work and photography are just okay. But for the camera movements, the film has nothing to horrify the audiences. The cinematographer tried to create an atmosphere that something is going to happen, though the audiences, did not bother it at all. The basic drawback of the film is that it lacks any entertainment or comedy. Though one can’t expect comedy in horror films, the basic quality for any film is entertainment, which is totally lacking in this movie.

REMARKS:

The movie had a delicate storyline besides an interesting screenplay and nice camera effect. None of the artistes need to care about their performance as the thrilling and fear effect is being created with the help of camera. The director and the crew should be complimented for making the movie in a forest which is really darn and fearing. Selection of location is superb and the commercial success of the film is a big question. If the oomph of Nisha Kothari could do a miracle, the film would go well with the mass and youth audiences. Otherwise, it would be another big dud. Unfortunately, Nithin had kept high hopes on the success of the film and one had to wait and watch how far his dreams come true.

Cast: Nitin, Priyanka Kothari, Gautam Rode, Rasika Duggal, Ishteyak Khan, Ishrat Ali, Ravi Kale, Harvey Rosemeyer, Kali Prasad Mukherjee, Joy Fernandes and others

Credits: Presents – Visakha Talkies, Producer – Nattikumar, Producers of Original Hindi version – Ram Gopal Varma, Ronnie Screwvala, Story, screenplay and direction Ram Gopal Varma

Banner: UTV Motion Pictures and Dream Force Enterprise.

Released on: August 7, 2009