Aatank

Growing up together in a remote village, two friends who find themselves as close as brothers learn that the village is under the iron-fisted rule of a treacherous gangster and must stop him from overrunning the village, only to find the task complicated by a massive shark lurking in the nearby waters.

This was a somewhat troubling if enjoyable effort. One of the film's biggest issues here is the decision to concentrate on the decidedly non-horror exploits of the gangster ruling over the village. The fact that he's a crime-lord with a mansion filled with dogs he feeds subordinates to is pretty eccentric, but this is a rather uneventful start to a creature feature film as it keeps the creature off-screen. Detailing the feud between him and the villagers as well as the secondary plot to smuggle out the pearls from the area, this ends up holding back our first shark attack until nearly an hour into the running time. That goes hand-in-hand with the other subplots involving his attempts to rule over the villagers to keep his nefarious plan a secret which just ends up doing the same thing in keeping the shark off-screen. That's somewhat of a blessing as well with the film's technical limitations due to the budgetary restrictions. It shouldn't cost much to make a shark that retains the same basic dimensions and proportions throughout the film yet the shark here is maddeningly and frustratingly inconsistent. Initially appearing to be slightly bigger than a grown person in some attacks, later scenes have the creature big enough to swallow a person within their jaws while an underwater chase is more of a realistic bigger-than-man being. This change in size is carried out with the stiff, plastic-like look of the model inside playsets for the sharks' activities. The storyline rationale for some of the attacks is also a bit clumsy and far-fetched which manage to hold this one back. There are a few things to like here. Despite not having much shark action, the other scenes here depicting the villagers fighting back against the mobsters' goons which result in various clumsily choreographed but energetic kung-fu brawls with the henchmen that offer a fine lead-in to the village raid. The scale is quite grander than expected and has a lot of intensity with the stunt-work featured here, really giving this a big scene much like the thrilling police raid at the compound at the end which has a rather enjoyable action movie tone featuring the gun battles and fighting throughout. That also is what works here with the big confrontation to get the shark out at sea as there's plenty to like involving the extended battle trying to bring it to the surface while the secondary race to stop the gangster fleeing the scene is a great touch due to the spectacle here of accomplishing both at the same time. Otherwise, there isn't much else here.

Rated Unrated/PG-13: Violence and Language.

I never thought I'd say that, but Aatank is one of the worst Indian copies of a Hollywood film. This one rips off the classic horror film Jaws, and it fails so bad that at points it's really sad to know that such awful filmmaking exists in Indian cinema. The movie is very outdated - in fact, I think it was a delayed movie for many years. The writing is bad, the special effects and the visuals are horrendous, the casting of Dharmendra, Hema Malini and other middle-aged actors in the roles of the young protagonists is awful, more because everyone was made to overact. As expected, the movie tries to work more on sentimentality rather than suspense and terror. A pathetic effort really. Can't bother to write more, just avoid it at any cost.