If you are thinking, this is going to be another laughter riot from Priyadarshan, then please go back to you homes and sit back. This movie is NOT a comedy flick. (Thanks to bad promotions) The movie is thriller with bit of comedy. (Priyadarshan trademark types comedy)

Okay, the story is pretty different. (Yeah, I know it is copy of Malyalm movie Manichitrathazhu).

Following is the plot of the movie (from Wikipedia)

The film revolves around a small village/town where the people are very conservative and superstitious. Badri (Manoj Joshi) heads a Brahmin family whose ancestral palace is believed to be haunted. One day, Siddharth (Shiny Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan), the son and daughter-in-law of Badri’s elder brother return to their native village from America and decide to settle down for a month in their ancestral palace.

Events take on a twist when Avni opens a locked forbidden room. As a result, unnatural events start taking place inside the palace. Badri and Batuk Shankar (Paresh Rawal) try to ward off the evil eye with the help of a priest and a parapsychologist. The blame comes to rest squarely on Radha (Amisha Patel), Badri’s adopted daughter. Siddharth brings in his American friend, psychiatrist Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar), who uses modern analytical techniques to find out the culprit and solve the mystery.

Now, the review time. What I liked most of the movie was, the ability to mix comedy and thriller together but at the same time, this was the main disadvantage too. All the comedy scenes roaming around Paresh Rawal, Asrani or say Rajpal Yadav looked pretty much natural. (Specially, Paresh Rawal ones.. he is a genius) but when the director tried to let Akshay jump into comedy bandwagon, the things become kind of messy. Though there was couple of very good comedy scenes of him (specially the intro one) but many unnecessary scenes became hurdles in the movie.

In many instances, people were laughing in the serious scenes. Sometimes, I too forgot whether I was watching some thriller movie or comedy.

2nd worst part in the movie was, couple of characters. Specially the character of Sharad. (You should watch the ending for this) In the ending, there was very serious scene between him and Avni, but it simply made people laugh out loud.

3rd worst part was, the length. Editor, should have chopped of couple of songs and few of Akshay’s scenes.

And lastly, director shouldn’t have let Shiney cry.. he looks super funny when he cries.

But there was many good parts too, Vidya Balan takes the first place. Her character was just superb in the 2nd half. But they could have explored her more and could have taken more out of her. 2nd place, Akshay Kumar, despite of having many silly scenes, this guy does his job brilliantly. Then comes Paresh Rawal, like I said earlier, he is a genius. Shiney Ahuja was pretty good leaving some rona dhona apart. Amisha’s role was short and sweet. Rest of the actors were good. (Rajpal yadav was kind of bad in first half but very good in 2nd)

Music was good, actually only 2 songs were good. First one was the title song and 2nd was, Labon Ko.

Direction, was good but could have been much better. Infact, much much better. The story was so strong but the direction was not helping it.

The movie could have been a huge hit if it would have handled well. The promos were also misleading. Everyone thought this was some comedy flick but when they actually watched it, they would something else. 

So the reaction in the crowd were mixed, infact I am sure the reaction will be mixed for reviewers too.

I personally liked the movie leaving few scenes aside. I would rate this movie [rating:3/5]. I wish Priyadarshan had handled the movie much more seriously.

Note: If you are planning to watch this movie, watch it in theatre, if you really want to enjoy it. You won’t enjoy watching it on DVD.

 

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