Dhund: The Fog

Dhund-The Fog is a really bad take off on the Hollywood horror flick I Know What You Did Last Summer. Nothing about the film works in its favor. The weak screenplay coupled with some lousy acting from the lead actors are to blame.

The story revolves around a group of friends: Sameer (newcomer Amar Upadhyay), Simran (Aditi Govitrikar), Kunal (Apoorva Agnihotri) and Kajal (Divya Palat). Simran always wins at a beauty contest and this lands her in a soup as a contestant Tanya's (Shweta Menon) brother, Ajit (Irrfan Khan) tells her not to participate in the contest as he wants his sister to win. If she participates in the contest, then he's kill her. But she ignores the warning of the mentally retarded brother and takes part in the contest and wins. Tanya decides to kill herself after losing the contest but her brother thwarts her moves. He swears revenge on Simran and goes to her house to kill her. But he gets killed instead. A frightened Simran along with her friends decides to get rid of his body by throwing it on a railway track to make his death look like a suicide. However, the dead man rises from his grave and starts extracting his ultimate revenge.

The performances are really bad. The four lead actors look confused and sleepwalked throughout the film. The worst actor among them is definitely Aditi Govitrikar. She hams incessantly and screams and yells. Divya Palat looks lost in front of camera. Apoorva Agnihotri does show his spark in the climax but at that time, he could really do nothing to save the film. Amar Upadhyay is one of the worst actors to be seen in Bollywood after a long time. Maybe he should get back to small screen. The only actor who puts his best effort in the film is Irrfan Khan. He does look scary and his looks are at par with his crazy, kinky role. Irrfan shows he can really go a long way in Bollywood. Prem Chopra and Gulshan Grover are just okay. Shweta Menon has a 15 minute-ish role.

It seems the director Shyam Ramsay created a rough draft but forgot to put his finishing touches on it. The weak screenplay is his biggest undoing. The editing is slow and the pace drops in the second half, making the movie a torture for the viewer.

I've never seen a film where the actors look so disinterested in the proceedings and are just there for the sake of being paid.

Like its title, Dhund-The Fog disappears in the fog once the film is over.

Avoid!!!

Ramsay – the kings of comedy (or was it horror, whatever) wake after years of hibernation. And yes, I did get scared. No not because of the horror element (of course I am not that squeamish) but because rats were constantly dancing on my feet in the khatmal-chaap theatre (where else do such movies run).

So check the plot. A man is repeatedly stabbed, choked to death, stuffed in plastic and dumped in a pool. But he still returns to take revenge. Now was the film a thriller or a horror? That itself is the suspense for you to discover. And the end turns out to be another mask mystery. Remember those trademark Ramsay undercover agents – men wearing some stupid horror masks. Only here the mask is of a human. I suppose, no more detailing is required to skip this flick.

Amarr Upadhyay tends to get over-dramatic and theatrical, forgetting the difference between cinema and TV soaps. A cheaply and skimpily dressed Aditi Gowitrikar in her typical pink lipstick looks like ….. (Uh! you know what).

The background score is a straight lift from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Not a single department of the film, whether technical or creative, is worth commenting. Novelty lacks both in story and execution.

Dhund certainly fogs your senses.

I watched this film hoping for a really good thriller. Sadly, that was not what I saw. What I saw was three hours of loosely edited material that tried too hard to be a thriller. Much of the film just tried too hard. The actors tried too hard, the music, and the direction. It is very similar to "I Know What You Did Last Summer" at least at the core. I would not recommend this film, except to recommend that they stay away.

I actually enjoyed many of the musical sequences such as the celebration song and dance in Ch.14 "Mein Albeli..." Those girls kicked butt! Great choreography! (what's with the pantyhose lines?) I'd go for just a slight costume re-design but it is cute nonetheless. Sleeker undergarments, sheer-to-waist pantyhose, etc... This movie is so confused~if you watch it with English subtitles, sometimes they say a sentence in English, otherwise it's mostly Hindu so it makes it odd and kind of "disconcertingly, humorously, absurd"~ : p when they do. I also think 2 & 1/2 hours (plus 3 min.) is a bit much but, I can't conceive what should be cut w/o changing its "comedic absurdist" elements.

I rented this movie with my friends originally thinking it was the '85 Fog. I was very wrong. I read on the back when we put it in that it was Bollywood, but I thought, no way is there singing! It's a thriller! There is indeed singing. The first time I watched it I was watching it for the absurdity of a scary movie that was a musical. Crazy bad acting showed up once and a while, like when some characters get hit, they spiral out of control, hit things, and keep spinning. There were also cases of sound effects that didn't match the action. The plot may have been a little sketchy, but I found it very hard to get bored. The second time I watched it I saw it for what it was supposed to be. I wasn't scared like I think I was supposed to be, but I appreciated the humor that was meant to be humorous, and even trying to sing along as best I could. This is a movie that is worth watching at least once: good music, random song and dance, crazy plot, and awesome characters!