Phoonk

Movie: Phoonk; Cast: Sudeep, Amruta Khanvilkar, Ahsaas Channa, Kenny Desai, Ashwini Kalsekar and Ganesh Yadav; Director: Ram Gopal Varma; Rating: ** 1/2

Phook reminded me of a hilarious episode of decade old Jaspal Bhatti’s comedy show Ulta Pulta, aired on our National channel, where the comedian tries to make a thriller and is surprised to win an award for Best Comedy Film for the same flick. At least you can say this for the first half of Phook where instead of getting scared one would laugh his/her heart out. After seeing the promotions of Rs. 5 lacs prize money for the person watching this flick alone, this wasn’t been expected from a proven director like Ram Gopal Varma.

The story of the movie revolves around Rajeev, a successful Construction Engineer with loving wife, and two children aged 10 and 8. Rajeev is an atheist to the core. He scoffs at God and even more at people who believed in the dark forces till one day when an evil is let loose in his happy home threatening to destroy his family and shake up the very foundations of his convictions and belief systems.

The movie starts with some funny camera angles and annoying music and that keeps repeating in the whole first half. Unnecessary sound effects and weird close up shots are simply unnecessary. Known to create an unexpected shock for the viewers by use of his creative camera angles, Ramu has failed to live up to his expectations this time around. In a desperate attempt to create horror, RGV has added some unnecessary horrific scenes in the movie.

But the same couldn’t be said for the second half of the film which seems to be pretty impressive, leaving few things aside. It surely makes people quietly sit at the edge of their seats. The scenes are so powerful that no one in the audience dared to utter a single word.

On the acting front, the little kid Ahsaas Channa is pretty impressive. She is really brilliant in the 2nd half. The others have also given a good performance leaving apart Ashwini Kalsekar, who is really irritating in the first half. Her laughter is more like someone screaming loudly in your ears and trying to kill you with that.

Background music is surprisingly good while the camera work would really have been much better. After all it plays a very important role in the making of a horror flick. I really wish first half was as good as second one. It looked like first half was directed by some sub standard director while the second half was handled by RGV himself. With many young and talented directors making their debut in Bollywood, Ramu really needs to deliver some good stuff soon, if we want to enhance his career in Bollywood.

To sum it up; the movie was not so bad not so good, but it could have been made really well if they had taken care of the first half. I mean, if you can’t add fear in the mind of people then at least don’t make them laugh, it’s supposed to be a horror movie.