Rabindra Pokharel

Kathmandu:

Bollywood has never had a dearth of talents. And some new entrants in the Bollywood film industry have proved it better than any of their predecessors. However, the lacklustre screenplays of the recent breed of Hindi movies seem hardly commensurate with the ability of the artistes. Bollywood is once again caught up in the vogue of the much-exploited genre of thrillers and patently falters with ‘Nazar’, directorial debut of character artist Soni Razdan and an attempt to dish out a sp-ooky thriller, with the suggestion of the paranormal. ‘Nazar’ begins with a promising note with the latest entrant in Bollywood come all the way from Lollywood (the Pakistani film industry), Meera, making her appearance onscreen. Divya Varman (Meera) is a successful stage show artiste who’s exhausted with the monotony of her life. Without warning, the story then jumps to one terrifying evening, where Meera, while driving on her way to Mumbai, is haunted by nightmares of her past. On the way, she finds a corpse of a young woman brutally murdered and abandoned on the lonely highway.

The story then takes its turn towards the paranormal, where we find Divya possessing extrasensory powers. She has premonitory visions of the disasters that’d wreak havoc on the lives of people she is little connected to. She gets the vision of every brutal murder, but is never clearly able to visualise the murderer hidden behind the mask. As the story unfolds she meets special investigating officer Rohan (Ashmit Patel), who’s coaxed by his ex-colleague to investigate the latest series of murders. The murderer leaves no clue of his whereabouts except the scalpel and gloves that he uses to slash the victims’ throats. Postintermission, Meera, troubled by her own supernatural powers, meets a prophet who gives her a solution to her problems. More gruesome murders follow, without anything more sensible happening.

Despite the hype over the smooching scene with Indian actor Ashmit Patel, Meera delivers. The overall attraction of the film is solely dependant on her sizzling scenes with Ashmit Patel. The storyline fails to build to a persuasive climax, more so, for the poor screenplay. Asmit fails to even faintly resemble a cop, try as he must.