I just watched Naqaab and thought I’d give my 2 cents worth. Naqaab, starring Bobby Deol, Akshaye Khanna and Urvashi Sharma and directed by Abbas Burmawalla and Mustan Burmawalla, starts off pretty routinely. You could have watched a hundred movies with the same premise — rich guy, poor girl, handsome third wheel, etc, etc.
Bobby Deol, the rich guy, looks absolutely ridiculous with the long spirally hair and jazzy clothes. He actually looked pretty decent a while back when he traded his greasy long locks for a cleaner cut image. I guess it didn’t work for him because he is back — greasier than ever! Also, do straight guys (even rich ones who have money to burn) actually wear shimmery pink shirts with little sparkly stones on the cuffs? And Akshaye Khanna… Well, he is the same Akshaye Khanna you’ve seen in any other one of his movies, a little too sweet and a little too bland at the same time. Urvashi Sharma showed some promise though. I’m not sure if this was her first movie (It’s the first time I’ve seen her), but she acted well and of course, she was rather pretty. Even then, some extreme closeups did reveal bad skin. But enough about the actors…
Now the movie, like I said, starts off pretty predictable. But of course, you know this is a mystery, right? The interval comes at you fast, before you have time to settle into your seat. I guess the lack of songs (there are only a couple of them in the whole movie) prevents the movie from being excruciatingly long. I have to say, I found the first dance sequence between Akshaye and Urvashi extremely odd, even though all of us are accustomed to well choreographed dance number in Bollywood films. After the interval, there are some twists and turns which I have to admit, I did not predict well. Even though the movie was rather short, the end kind of dragged on. On the whole, it was a good time pass movie — nothing which will keep you thinking about it for days, but still, a nice break from your routine love triangle movies. After watching the ending, you have to think it was a pretty unique story line (for a Bollywood movie).
I don’t know if the masses are ready for them, but one of these days, Indian cinema will be better at making mystery/horror genre movies. Right now, I guess we will have to settle for decent attempts.
Watch the trailer:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5h_x2hEEjw]
