It is raining serious moolah for Bollywood. After Race 2, ABCD and Special 26, one more movie is destined to be a big grosser. The Bhatt camp is always known for proffering out movies with a smidgen of ethical indistinctness, gleaming women, erotic passions, sumptuous outdoors, and what not.
Being ingloriously famous for recreation of the Hollywood themes, Bhatts for a change have taken to something new with Murder 3.
Guess what?
Nothing atypical but we have a remake of “Spanish” classic “The Hidden Face” (La cara oculta) this time.
However, the movie can be termed as the best adapted version by the camp so far.
The movie can easily be mistaken as a horror-flick through the first half but shapes out an intensely crafted thriller later.
Murder 3, a sequel to the Murder 2 is directed by Vishesh Bhatt (making incursion into direction first time).
Story:
It is a watchfully tailored story of a wildlife photographer Vikram (Randeep Hooda) who moves from South Africa to India for his photo-shoot assignment along with his girlfriend, Roshini (Aditi Rao). She hurls up her flourishing career to settle in Mumbai, quite astonishingly.
They move into a pretentious house on the outskirts of Mumbai. All goes well until one day when Roshini decides to test Vikram on suspicion of his alleged involvement with his hair stylist Niyomi; the least we talk about Hooda’s jarring hairdo in the movie the better.
Unfotunately, this leads to sudden disappearance (on 14th February) of Roshini and here commences the real story.
As the plot unfolds, Vikram finds consolation in a gorgeous and sensuous lounge waitress Nisha (Sara Loren) who loves to flaunt her well-toned body uninhibited.
The house suddenly seems to hold many secrets with spooky noises arising from its different corners.
Nisha manages to reveal the secrets, though at some cost.
Movie Analysis:
It was widely anticipated that Murder 3 would surely miss the charisma of regular “Murderer”—sorry!! Male protagonist of the past Murder flicks, Emran Hashmi. Nevertheless, Hooda leaves no stone unturned in matching up with his tiresome and dead pan faced acting skills.
Bhatt camp’s penchant for Pakistani actresses seems to be an unending affair. With casting of Mona Lizza in the project they are all set to flout anti-Pakistan feelings in the country all by themselves.
Anyhow, Mona’s outer persona appears somewhat enhanced than her debut Bollywood movie Kajraare. She looks appealing in the movie; a few acting lessons would perhaps do more justice to her raw flair.
Aditi Rao Hydari is the lass to watch out for. She steals the show singlehandedly, especially in the second part with her superior acting skills and susceptible looks.
Drawbacks:
- Forcible inclusion of horror-element in the first half, particularly the breakfast scene of Hooda and Mona appears to be forced upon the storyline. The house servant is quite like the typecast “Ramu kaka with a lantern” of the past B-grade Bollywood horror movies.
- It went clearly undefined why Mona falls so easily for a flirt and drunkard like Randeep. Whether she yearned for Randeep’s money or she was just obsessed, it’s not clear.
- Hooda’s Casanova ways are bewildering too. One cannot make out whether he intentionally fell for every new girl or misinterpreted by the audience.
- The college time admirer of Mona and the cop investigating into Aditi’s abrupt disappearance looks so comical and confused sporting a back up gun vest 24/7.
- Senior Sherrif and Ranbir’s boss attempts to generate ill-timed and unfounded humor.
Positives:
- Music by Pritam -Roxen band and lyrics by immensely talented lyricist Sayeed Qadri rule the roost keeping up with the tradition of all previous Bhatt camp movies.
- The background score by Raju Singh deserves special accolades.
- The exotic locales of South Africa and Goa have been vividly integrated into the movie by the cinematographer, Sunil Patel.
Last but not least, Vishesh Bhatt undoubtedly deserves kudos for creating an invigorating narrative. The “Indianised” edition indubitably keeps the original standards intact.
***The movie gets thumbs up from Hillpost and 3 stars on a scale of 5.
A mechanical engineering graduate with a post graduation in marketing and sales, Ashish has combined professional experience of more than 4 years.
Ashish is a great fan of Martin Scorsese. He loves to write poetry in his spare time.
He lives in Shimla.
