Murder 2

Emraan Hashmi and Prashant Narayan (I loved him in Yeh Saali Zindagi) were just splendid! Jacqueline is supposed to be the eye candy and she does it well. She adds more spice than Mallika Sherawat.

Music is a plus point of the movie. Aye Khuda is shot in a brilliant way (Mohit Suri did the same thing in Awarapan). Haal – E – Dil sounds good too. Background score by Raju Singh is okay.

The fault with the movie is in its screenplay. Due to the urge to mix up erotica with thriller, Shagufta Rafique messes with the flow of the movie. Dialogues are crisp. The actions and visuals were dark and intense, apt to the theme.

Overall, Mohit Suri had his heart and mind on the correct track while making the movie, but if the story and screenplay were better (or should I say logical); the movie would have worked wonders. A worth watch anyways!

Not surprisingly, Mohit Suri makes yet another rip-off (the Korean movie 'Chaser') and, of course, with the added recycled Bhatt material (eunuch 'rapist' villain -as evident in 'Sadak' and 'Sangharsh'), clumsy sex scenes and the Bollywood ingredients (song and 'dance', including the required item number). It may not be among the most expensive films but it's quite apparent that a lot of money has been spent. However, 'Murder 2' still looks and feels like a B-movie. Camera-work is overdone. Editing is shoddy. Too many subplots that aren't fleshed out, lots of plot holes. The use of light is effective especially in the nocturnal sequences. Most of the performances are average at best. Emraan Hashmi does go overboard in several scenes. Jacqueline Fernandez seems to only have been required for her body. Sulagna Panigrahi does a confident job and... if there is one reason to watch 'Murder 2' at all then that's Prashant Narayanan who easily steals the show as the ruthless vicious sociopathic serial killer. One good that came from the box office success of this forgettable, rather lacklustre thriller is the appreciation of this actor, most of whose memorable works received little recognition.

After a long time I have watched a thriller which I really enjoyed. The movie isn't that great but has a decent story line and some really frightening scenes (not much though).

Emraan Hashmi does a good job. Jaqueline Fernandis doesn't have much role in the movie. She is just in 2 songs and 2 scenes. (I personally don't like it when the girl is used only to increase the "glamour" quotient of the movie and has no proper role). The villain (don't know his name) is too good and scary. Music is okay.

A few minutes after the start, the movie picks up pace. Emraan Hashmi is a good actor. Don't know why he isn't considered among the top stars in India. Overall, a good and enjoyable movie.

First of all, do not read any reviews on multiple Indian sites such as rediff and dna. I have a strong reason for the same. Raja Sen of Rediff, claims "The Chaser" to be a little obscure film, he didn't care to look for. Mayank Tiwari claims Korean cinema to be exploitative in nature. So, U can see how the reviewers in India have become slaves to mushy gay flicks belonging to Karan Johar's Gang. Moving on, this is a good rip-off. Mohit Suri earlier ripped off A Bittersweet Life in Awarapan, and now this. He's a good craftsman,and that shows. The film is racy enough, and the villain, albeit too theatrical, but still tends to be creepy. If u've never seen the chaser, this will prove to be a good thriller for u. If u have, U will see flaws. It's not as gritty as the original, but it's somewhat close. There are a few sex scenes, but I hope by now cinema-goers are used to it. Nothing too offensive, trust me. Jacqueline is OK, a better actress might have done wonders. Emraan, like always, is quite fierce, but just falls short. The script is to be blamed for that. Prashant is a brilliant actor and deserves better roles, this is not one of them, but still a good showcase of his skills. I just hope that they did an Indian version of it, not just copy it. Rajkumar Gupta did wonders with Cavite's script (Aamir, anyone)...

With MURDER 2, the decades old tradition of Bhatt Camp continues, taking it all (from the first frame to the last) from an engrossingly well made Korean Thriller called "THE CHASER" released in 2008.

In short, the director and his writer take 90% ingredients for their over-cooked script from the Korean Film. Then they add a love-sex angle to it as a mandatory clause of Hindi Film-making technique. To make it more spicier, they bring in some eunuch characters into the narration with the get-up earlier used in their own films, SANGHURSH (by Ashutosh) and SADAK (by Sadashiv). And further, sprinkling it with a few emotional sequences about some broken families, they are ready with their latest flick MURDER 2, taking advantage of the brand name of their earlier Hit MURDER.

As I have realised, many of my reader friends here would like to say that, "We don't really care if it's a copy or not, so cut out the allegation crap and just let us know whether the movie is good or bad and that's it."

In answer to that I would only like to say that MURDER 2 is an Open Creative Theft made by the Bhatt camp in this current age of world-wide- web. Now, a theft remains a theft, whether done carelessly or with utmost care and devotion. Even if it happens to be a too good movie (which fortunately it isn't), still it remains a Shameless Robbery of any other person's creative work and nothing else. And I am simply not interested in writing a detailed review of a copied movie.

However, for all my friendly readers, who are willing to know more about Cinema in details, I would like to present this movie as a fine lesson in learning few important things about Bollywood Film-making style.

1. Bollywood film-maker's biggest problem is that we still are not sure of what genre we are dealing in while making a film. The current MURDER 2 copies a fast paced cruel bloody Korean thriller "THE CHASER" which solely talks about a serial killer, murdering all the girls in the flesh trade. He is being tracked by a detective turned pimp whose all girls are disappearing one after another. The film starts and ends just around this one single track and has no-unwanted scenes in between talking about something else. In simple words, it's a Bloody Suspense Thriller and it remains a bloody suspense thriller throughout.

But MURDER 2 not even remains a thriller in its more than 2 hours of duration. There is an added track in it of a beautiful model girl who is in love with the hero as Love essentially has to be there like sugar or salt in a dish. There are many unwanted eunuchs and unmoving stories of broken families inserted into it which were not required at all. The soundtrack has surprisingly all love songs in a CRIME THRILLER movie like a variety served on the dinner table by its makers.

2. Secondly in this new age of fresh creative minds, we still follow double standards in showing the characters of our male and female leads. Now in the original flick the lead character or the hero is an ex- dirty detective turned Pimp dealing in girl trade, who is searching for his missing girls. But in our Hindi version the hero becomes an ex-Cop turned detective looking for the serial killer as his private assignment. So the writers give a certain amount of respect to their Lead Male character played by Emraan Hashmi in the film.

But on the other hand MURDER 2 has a sexy-model character played by Jacqueline Fernandez, who simply has no definite role in the movie but is added only to be exploited as a female body.

So the point here is that at one end the makers give a certain kind of respect to their male Hero by changing him from a Pimp to a Cop- Detective. But on the other hand the female lead in the film is only used to show her skin and bring in more initial crowds in the theater as expected from the title of the film. That's the double standard mind-set Bollywood actually works in.

3. Thirdly after watching both the movies, you will have a clear idea of what it means by the term "Added Sub Plots" which in most of the cases ruin the real essence of a film. In this case too, where the original keeps walking on a single track and never gets distracted from its basic storyline of A Chaser, its Hindi copy keeps wandering between its various added subplots which could have been easily avoided. Frankly speaking we can't even stick to a basic storyline even when its all copied from another brilliant source.

4. Lastly and more importantly, if you even copy the idea for the Poster of your film along with its script then I wonder what the whole team actually may have done as far as creativity is concerned in this project. Here the makers of MURDER 2 not only copy their whole film from the Korean Original scene to scene, but they also copy their posters from a Danish film called "Antichirst" released in 2009 and a Korean film "Bad Guy or Nabbeun Namja" which came in 2001. Now that's really a great amount of research done by the team.

Summing up, with MURDER 2, the Bhatt camp continues to try for their next box office success in Hindi Cinema by taking the credit of all the hard work done by someone else residing in a different part of the globe far away……and they have really mastered this shameful act of "Art of Inspiration" by now. (However, I would love to be surprised with the impossible news that they actually did buy the rights this time.)