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Posted on 12 September 2012
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Raaz 3: The Bhatt horror show
The third installment of the Raaz franchise is amateurish at best, and an assault on the audience’ intelligence at worst, says Ajachi Chakrabarti
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The inherent difficulty in reviewing a film like Raaz 3D is that panning it inevitably leads to accusations of elitism. But to call Raaz 3D anything other than an atrociously executed crap fest that is blatantly a cynical attempt at squeezing more money out of a popular franchise would be not only be an injustice to the readers of this review but fundamentally dishonest. The one good thing about the movie is that there is no pretence of cinematic excellence and if watched after appropriate quantities of alcohol (I'd suggest at least 16 shots of vodka), it may even be entertaining in its campiness.
When watched sober, however, the film is infuriating in its constant insulting of the audience's intelligence. Bipasha Basu plays Shanaya, Bollywood's current top actress until she is outshone by young upstart Sanjana Krishna (Esha Gupta), who happens to be her half-sister. When Sanjana beats her to the best actress award at an awards function despite her wearing a sacred thread around her wrist, Shanaya loses faith in God and turns to the occult, and an old family retainer appears out of thin air and introduces her to Tara Dutt (Manish Chowdhary), a demon who gives her a poison that will make Sanjana's life hell.
Shanaya asks her secret boyfriend, a director named Aditya (Hashmi), who agrees to use black magic to sabotage the career of an actress he admires in exchange for sex. He hires Sanjana for his next film and poisons her daily, leading to her seeing ghosts and demons and evil clowns who cause her to forget her lines during shooting. Inevitably, they fall in love and Shanaya finds out, and soon she's after both of them. The rest of the movie involves flying cockroaches, sex scenes in which at least one participant is covered in leeches and a lot of Emraan Hashmi kissing people. If all this doesn't make sense, join the club.
The acting is terrible, with Bipasha chewing the scenery, Hashmi employing his standard lost-puppy-trying-to-seem-menacing expression throughout the film, and Esha Gupta providing the best performance in the film by thankfully slipping into a coma in the third act. Director Vikram Bhatt seems to have phoned it in, though his previous films (Dangerous Ishq, anyone?) seem to suggest this is the best he can do. The visuals resemble Doordarshan soap operas with shockingly amateur horror sequences. The music is eminently forgettable.
Worst of all, however, is that a movie can exist in 2012 where superstition and the existence of black magic are never questioned by any of the protagonists at any time. Aditya readily agrees to use black magic as if it were just an annoying chore like walking his girlfriend's dog. Shanaya signs a deal with the devil as if she were fixing a hairdresser's appointment. There isn't even the token “How can you trust scientists when you don't understand science?” zinger that became a lazy trope in Bollywood horror.
Yes, but it appeals to the single screen market, as the Bhatts have gleefully pointed out to all who listen. I saw it in one. The crowd whistled and cheered at their cues, so meticulously laid out to pander to them. The problem is that it fails to even make it as a decent B-film. The B-film industry produces movies with way more character and honesty than this corporate film, made with focus groups and demographic studies and containing commercial breaks. This return to the studio age through the baffling popularity of sequels that aren't even actually sequels has begun to take away what little publicity independent films were getting. How can you compete with something that breaks even before a single ticket is sold? This film is a prime example of the Great Automatic Grammatizator Bollywood has become.
letters@tehelka.com
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