मर्डर 2

Murder 2, the much anticipated sequel is surprisingly very different to the original Murder. If you want to watch this film for its erotic aspect alone, you'll be somewhat disappointed with the lack of originality as several recent Bollywood flicks have turned sex into an over-rated, oversold theme. However the serial-killer dimension is a novelty - all the blood, gore, darkness and intimidation blends into a perfect plot to literally scare the living daylights out of you, pun intended. This movie is clearly a popcorn fest and recommended to be seen when you have been bored like hell or had a very bad day at the workplace. Please don't watch if your mood is cheerful - Murder 2 is far too disturbing. An A certificate is justified and children should be prevented from coming close to a DVD release.

As for the performances, every actor played his/her part quite well. Jacqueline looks beautiful, Emraan comes sharp-witted with his dialogue delivery but the real scene stealer was Prashant Narayan who brought great conviction and authenticity to his serial killer role. He should undoubtedly win some kind of Best villain award.

Well where to begin, yes the concept is taken from a crappy made Korean movie The Chaser, but the storyline of Murder 2 is much different and aspect and feel of the movie is completely opposite from the chaser. It's dark, gloomy, scary, thrilling, and bone-chilling horror movie. It's been a looong time since I've seen a bollywood movie which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

Now to give u the sense of what I'm saying, if you have seen the movie SANGHARSH starring Akshay Kummar, Priety Zinta, and Ashutosh Rana, then you can expect something very similar in this movie. Murder 2 had the same feeling of Sangharsh but it's alooot more twisted and scary. My suggestion is to watch this movie alone at night with darkness. Now comparing this to the First Murder: First off THANK GOD this was not a sequel from the first movie, because that storyline was ridiculous and stupid. This part was totally different.

You can easily see how far of a better actor Emraan Hashmi has become from his younger days. He did an excellent job playing his role, never once he disappointed. Now onto Jacqueline Fernandez - Holy Smokes I had no idea she was this hot, I mean I've seen her in other small roles and item songs, but I was blowned away to see her amazing acting skills.

Now onto Prashant Narayanan - I saw this guy first in the movie Yeh Saali Zindagi. I really don't know who discovered him, but THANK YOU for giving him a break in movies. He's just a natural, his voice, his eyes, his personality is perfect for these kinds of roles. If you watch him in his recent movie Bhendi Baazar you'll see that he was born to do roles like this. I'm astonished to see how polished of an actor he is. Bollywood is lacking villains lately but looks like they have found the perfect one. I really really want to see him more in movies. WOW!!!

Overall: Compare to the trash bollywood movies that have been coming out lately, Thank God for this movie to arrive at the right time. I was not expecting much but it totally blew my socks away.

Well Done Bhatt Camp, Mohit Suri did yet another fantastic job on directing this movie. He has a really unique gloomy vision which really catches your attention.

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.

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.)