Naqaab

The film's tag-line said it all which is "The most shocking thriller of the year". It was really shocking with twists & turns that were impossible to predict. You just don't know who is bad, who is good? and what is their motive? Do not mistake this film as another love triangle about two guys fighting for one girl because it's completely different. Urvashi Sharma (Sophie) was OK for her first film but Bobby Deol (Karan) and Akshaye Khanna (Vicky) were terrific as usual, it is great to see them again after Humraaz. Music is excellent composed by one of my favourite composers Pritam. The best songs are Ek Din (which stands out with its memorable Spanish guitar intro) and Aye Dil sung by Sunidhi Chauhan. Abbas-Mustan are known for creating good music in all of their films. They are one of my favourite directors; I loved their films ever since I seen Baazigar. Although they are inspired from Hollywood movies but their films are better than the original which are:

Naqaab- Dot the I (2003)

36 China Town- Chinatown (1974)

Aitraaz- Disclosure (1994)

Humraaz- A Perfect Murder (1998)

Ajnabee- Consenting Adults (1992)

Daraar- Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

Baazigar- A Kiss Before Dying (1991)

Right before watching Naqaab I understood that if I have ever to catch this Abbas-Mustan thriller that would be only for newly introduced Urvashi Sharma. Beside this I find no other reasons to watch. Every time I see Urvashi I remember of Diana Rigg, the Bond girl of 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service opposite George Lazenby. She is new but surprisingly she did help to flash the camera as a new battery. Although the movie was made colourfully it hardly puts any positive colour to our heart, due to such an over-twisting plot.

This is the third nonsense directorial presentation from director duo Abbas-Mustan after Daraar and Badshah. After watching a single time I got fed up with the movie and hope not to repeat it watching again. So far they have used Bobby Deol with better prospects in their previous thrillers - Soldier, Ajnabee and Humraaz, but here they all put him under the mud. Although his role has a bit tragedy here but it fails to load back in memory after the movie reaches its end. But the romantic humours between Akshaya and Urvashi are really hilarious and worth watching. Quiet something they can form a good pair if mechanized correctly.

I had to say once again if there is any reason to watch Naqaab, that is Urvashi Sharma. She performed her first role with full confident, and I noticed nothing weaknesses in her acting as well as screen-presence. I beg to Abbas-Mustan to cast her in future again in their next upcoming projects with good story, casting and production.

Abbas-Mustan, who have introduced bold concepts of wife-swapping, surrogate mother and sexual harassment to Indian cinema, true to their unique style of storytelling, try something different yet again. Naqaab certainly isn't your ordinary run-off-the-mill Bollywood love triangle. And true to the directors' trademark, the film is filled with twists and turns. Saying anymore would be giving the plot away.

While the film is a far cry from Khiladi or Baazigar, it is far better than their recent "36 China town" and "Tarzan the wonder car" Casting is where the directors probably lost it: Akshaye Khanna, an old mascot in the A-M camp, seems not only out of shape to play a struggling actor, he seems 10 years too old for the part. Bobby Deol, another old favorite of A-M's still manages to look the part of the flamboyant rich man, but can't pull it off with finesse. Urvashi Sharma is a major let down in the acting department. her emotions seem concocted and superficial. While she looks decent enough in places, there are parts where she is either made to look bad, or achieves it naturally. The supporting cast is feeble. Vikas Kalantri and Vishal seem to be playing buffoons stuck with a serous job. who knows why Raj Zutshi is even there in the film? While the locations and camera work merge seamlessly into the film and the plot is complex and well conceived, the film loses out in its execution: at times focusing on the obvious and at times playing a tangent to the storyline. while it scores points for originality and keeping the audience curious, it loses points for performances, or lack thereof and one twist too many.

The first half sets the plot in motion with haphazard character introductions and development, and the second half has a twist every few minutes, intentionally put to keep the audience in their seats. character motivations seem strong enough but somehow the film lacks flow.

the good: plot has interesting concept, interesting twists the bad: the acting, the execution of the plot the ugly: the supporting cast final verdict: Could have been better, but worth one watch

This movie's a poor remake of a 2003 movie called "Dot The i" written and directed by Matthew Parkhill and starred Gael Garcia Bernal, Natalia Verbeke and James D'Arcy. I loved that movie and was saddened to see this awful remake. This not an adaptation or an interesting take on the original. It is totally ripped off, scene for scene. The location has been changed to Dubai- that's it. This travesty is made worse by forgettable songs and third rate acting by the whole cast. I don't think anyone ever acknowledged the original movie. I wonder how anyone can get away with this in this day and age when everyone is sensitive about intellectual property rights.

From prolific filmmaker duo Abbas-Mustan Naqaab.In this film that's set in Dubai, newcomer Urvashi Sharma and Bobby Deol play a young couple engaged to be married. It's another thing he's a multi-millionaire with a home the size of a palace, and she works at Burger King and pays him rent to live under his roof. Just days before her marriage to Bobby, she meets and strikes up a friendship with an aspiring actor played by Akshaye Khanna. Sparks fly between the two, but on Urvashi's insistence their friendship is kept strictly platonic. On D-Day, however, just moments before she exchanges marriage vows with Bobby, Urvashi has a change of heart. Up until this stage, the film made perfect sense to me, but it's from this point onwards that Naqaab turns truly bizarre. It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot because that would give away the surprise element of the film. But believe me, you'd never have guessed where this film was going anyway, because it's so ridiculous and unimaginable. Now you're probably wondering why I'm complaining if the film is unpredictable, because unpredictable is a good thing, right? Well, there a difference between unpredictable and ridiculous, and the thing about the twists and turns in Naqaab is that they're absolutely ridiculous. For years Abbas-Mustan have ripped off popular films from Hollywood and delivered successful Hindi remakes: Khiladi, Baazigar, Daraar, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, Ajnabee, Humraaz and Aitraaz.But with Naqaab they've hit their weakest note because it's a thriller without any thrills if you ask me. There's none of that nail-biting tension, no suspense and an anti-climax to top it all. I could pick a hundred holes in the screenplay but I don't even want to bother, because that would still mean putting in more effort than the writers and the directors have. You know one's willing to suspend disbelief if your script can convince me to make that leap of faith. And Abbas-Mustan know that better than anyone else. We've happily gone along with their stories of mistaken identities, reincarnations, double roles, death-avenging relatives, and murderous spouses.But with Naqaab they come up with something so bizarre that's it's really difficult to digest. In all honesty, I was so stunned by the banality of the plot that I was convinced this couldn't be a rip-off. It had to be some amateur writer's amateurish effort which Abbas-Mustan decided to direct. But to my surprise I discovered that Naqaab is not only a bad script, it's also not an original script. It is copied from a film called Dot the I starring Gael Garcia Bernal. The directors of Naqaab have plundered, lock stock and barrel from that obscure American film. It's not just the plot and the premise of that film that's been borrowed, even dialogues from that film have been directly translated into Hindi and shamelessly used. When a film's not working for you, you can usually find a million things to not like in it. As far as Naqaab is concerned, I have to ask if the costume designer of the film was smoking pot while at work. How else do you explain the horrifying clothes that she's draped most of the actors in—red lace gloves for the leading lady, pink satin shirt with a matching pink waistcoat for Bobby, and double-layered clothes for Akshaye. Hell, why? Also what's with all those ugly sets? From the outside Bobby's home looks like the Queen of England's holiday home, but the interiors are the kind of tasteless sets they used to construct at Hyderabad's Banjara Hills for those B-grade family dramas in the eighties. There's little one can say about the three actors in this film, they perform adequately but fail to make much of an impression and it's hardly their fault given the kind of material they're working with. Abbas-Mustan's Naqaab is far-fetched and illogical and there's hardly anything to like about it.