Doom Bhulaiyaa

When Priyadarshan claimed he would stop making comedies after Dhol, he was being dead serious. What emerged was Doom Bhulaiyaa - something new not only for this director more at home with slapstick comedy, but a novel movie making experience very alien to Bollywood. Industry insiders claim that Activision, the makers of the famous video game series Doom, considered by most gamers as the Godfather Trilogy of all First Person Shooter video games.

The movie combined this First Person camera angle with a non-violent Indian touch. The protagonists did not carry guns, but had to play the juvenile Indian game of Eye Spy with the monster of the script. An innovative cinematography technique known as jitterbugging, which involves making a sufficiently malnourished cameraman run behind the subjects through 'Ramuly' lit long narrow corridors carrying a movie camera as heavy as the most elusive rocket launcher in the Doom series on his narrow shoulders was used in this movie. I hear the patent is pending.

Akshay Kumar arrives quarterway through the movie to Spy on the monster but the weak script does not do justice to his otherwise excellent comic timing on a regular basis. There are occasional flashes in the deadpan producing a few laugh out loud bullying scenes. Akshay, like Priyadarshan had also promised to explore other aspects of his acting persona. He does exactly that as he expresses his love for small, ahem, marbles and takes a one on one trip with the owner of these while throwing little yellow flowers up in the air a la Rekha in Silsila with a peppy, yet incoherent with respect to the script song playing in the background and playing another juvenile Indian game - musical chairs with little boats.

Look out - spoiler alert! The makers of OSO may be patting themselves on the back after the much hullabalooed 31 star studded item number, but Priyadarshan did another cinematic first as he got a huge (yeah OK, much leaner now) comeback star's self-designed ornament to do an audio guest appearance for his film. In order to publicize her latest film Aaja Nachle, in which she plays the ghungroo of a dancer facing mid-life crisis with irregular bouts of patriotism, Madhuri Dixit's payal plays the role of the monster with great jhanak (indigenous tautology anyone?) and impeccable Bangla pronunciation. Rimi Sen is proud of the latter achievement as she coached the ghungroo after Priyadarshan was impressed with her Dhoom performances, much like Salman Khan took the young unmuscular Hrithik Roshan under his wing before the making of Kaho Na Pyar Hai. Sen muses tangentially on the 'Pay It Forward' quality of the act, and hopes that the ghungroo will perform the favor for another struggling Bollywood actor or piece of inventory in the future after reaching cult status following Aaja Nachle.

Shiney Ahuja looks positively royal, as his character is meant to be, but gets too carried away with the whole Angry Young Handsome Royal image. He was screaming with almost the same regularity as the baby in the hall. I don't really dig horror films. Efforts to scare me end up amusing me, that is efforts involving supernatural beings. However, if the efforts involve deranged varieties of the human psyche, my laughter disappears, because that gives the entire story more of a realistic feel. As Tina knows, the fear quotient of my mind was scratched very early in life during a late night Doordarshan showing of Satyajit Ray's Teen Kanya, so much so that even today, a woman delirious with laughter without any apparent reason sends a chill down my spine. The feeling is exponentially aggravated if she is also unnaturally hot. Looks like Tina's been consulting for Priyadarshan.

Priyadarshan raises the question of belief in supernatural powers effectively, but falters when he attempts to answer that very question, chiefly because of a script inundated with holes that has way too many unnecessary characters (a Priyan signature I know) and thus is intense enough only in parts. However, I am feeling generous and the effort is transparent enough to be worth a slight nod.