Acid Factory

Sanjay Gupta has been associated with a big list of inspired films in the past and his "Acid Factory" too follows the same trend fearlessly. Directed by Suparn Verma the film heavily borrows most of its content from the English thriller "Unknown" released in 2006. With more legal remakes in the scene I hope the makers have acquired the rights of this adaptation, since it has scene to scene to similarities with the original.

The movie as a whole is an OK thriller for the Indian viewers who may not have seen masterpieces such as "Saw" series" & "Cube". But for an avid movie lover who is well familiar with this intense, psychological, brain twister thriller genre of the west, "Acid Factory" is just a rehash version of the Original, accompanied by some un-required stunts and usual Indian elements. In fact the deliberately added flavors to suit the Indian audiences take away the essence of an otherwise well directed but inspired attempt from White Feather Films.

It starts in an abandoned factory, where five men wake up from an unconscious state with a zero memory about their names and origin. Suspecting each other for their current state, they have a mutual conflict, trying to know the real truth about themselves and the others. The first half only deals with their small fights along with a few glimpses of their individual past. But it's the second half which has a better grip, unfolding the real mystery behind the game played by all. The movie builds up slowly raising your expectations for an explosive climax which sadly remains unfulfilled. The concluding moments in the script are not that convincing as they should have been to end up a tense psycho thriller.

Performance wise everyone is just there with nothing exceptional delivered by any particular actor. The most talented among the star-cast is Irfan Khan who is simply wasted in the few scenes he gets. Diya Mirza, who was majorly used for the Net publicity campaign is hardly there in the movie (she enters after the intermission). And it was nice to see "Neha" back on screen after a long time. Cinematography is first rate with Sanjay Gupta's favorite green tone on the screen. But the lavishly shot actions scenes and the few songs were completely out of place and were not needed at all.

In few words, "Acid Factory" is a borrowed movie coming from the director Suparn Verma. It can be given a chance by those who haven't seen the original western flicks and love this intense, brain twister genre of movies where the hidden truth gets revealed in the climax.

Frankly speaking, it's really tough to write about a movie which straight away starts with a completely inspired scene where even the location, ambiance and characters are purely an imitation of the original. It simply takes away the joy of watching a movie. In other words it's like watching a painting in a gallery, signed by an artist who hasn't painted it at all.

I've heard of remakes like 20 years later, but not 3 years later??? This movie sounds exactly like "Unknown" from 2006. This is the Plot from Unknown: (Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse with no memory of who they are. They are forced to figure out who is good and who is bad to stay alive.) Maybe with Unknown you won't feel let down at the end of the movie like you will with Acid Factory- because Unknown was a terrific movie!!! It's sounds like all they did was change up the ending a little and basically used the exact same concept for the whole rest of the movie. I wouldn't even waste my time on this movie- I would just rent or buy Unknown and enjoy it.

Acid Factory, directed by Suparn Verma, looks like it's been assembled from the footage that was edited out of Sanjay Gupta's Kaante. Shot in the same grainy moss-green colour tone; its characters speak in a similar hyper-active overlapping style; and two big action set-pieces notwithstanding, it's a suffocating psychological thriller at its core. Of course, there's also that trademark sequence of all characters walking towards camera in slow motion.But while Kaante owes much by way of debt to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs of which it was a shameless ripoff,Acid Factory has been blatantly plagiarised from the lesser-seen 2006 thriller, Unknown.Five guys and one chick wake up in an abandoned chemical factory on the outskirts of Cape Town. They have been variously beaten, bound, shot and handcuffed, but nobody remembers a thing. Not even their names, or what they're doing there. A gas-leak at this factory has resulted in this temporary amnesia, you learn. Repeated phone-calls from a central figure seem to suggest that a kidnapping has taken place, and that two of them are going to die. Now the group must piece back their memories and work out the possible permutations -- who are the kidnappers and who's been kidnapped? -- before the mastermind behind this operation finally shows up. Borrowing too many tricks that have been used too many times before, director Suparn Verma kills what could have been an otherwise promising thriller by packing it with ridiculously silly chase scenes, gratuitous club songs, and outrageously idiotic dialogue.It doesn't help that Acid Factory comes with an all-star cast of jokers including Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea, Aftab Shivdasani and Dia Mirza who don't bring a shred of credibility to their roles. Even dependable actors like Irrfan Khan and Danny Denzongpa are wasted in thankless roles, while Manoj Bajpai hams it up as a maniacal criminal. A film of this nature might still have worked if the holes in the plot hadn't been so glaring. I mean think about it that six chaps can't remember a thing, and not one of them is carrying any ID? You'll come out wishing you had inhaled some of that amnesia-inducing gas too.

What I like about this film is that it stayed true to its script (and its inspiration, the film Unknown)…apart from adding a couple of redundant item numbers, it didn't stray from its main storyline and add sub-plots, emotion, drama just to spice things up. And, probably for the umpteenth time, here is a film with an interesting premise, which doesn't live up to its full promise, in this case due to a weak ending and possibly flawed editing.

This is a story about some characters, all toughies, who wake up with temporary memory loss, in a sealed acid factory and have no idea who they are or why they are there. Two are bound, the others are free, but they cannot go out of the premises or make any calls. Slowly, they figure out what their next steps should be, both collectively and individually. And they have to figure out who to trust and who to watch out for. They have different characteristics as well, each one defined reasonably clearly. One is more a 'detective', one a 'scientist', another is dressed as a Casanova, one is a tapori and one just a regular tough guy.

The flashback technique was inappropriate for me, in this film, as it gave too much away. And the ending was tame, you wait for a big twist but its just a tame one (faulty editing being the culprit for me) and it doesn't make the two hours or so worth it.

This is yet another film which unnecessarily chooses a fancy locale (South Africa) with no reason at all (apart from a willing producer) why this film (75% of which is in a warehouse) couldn't have been shot completely locally. The cast, comprising exclusively of the 'almost famous' and 'has beens' delivers quite well, no complaints here. And the opening titles sequence is interesting, using a 'green negative' kind of effect which is interesting.

What this film needed though was a spectacular ending, to make the whole experience worthwhile. Currently, you leave with the impression of a couple of hours spent reasonably, but not entirely worth it. More reviews at apurvbollywood at blogspot.com