Apartment: Rent at Your Own Risk

Few weeks back we had "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge" talking about an unwanted guest in a comical manner inclined more towards the family audiences. And this week we have "Apartment", which has a different kind of invited paying guest, who in just a few days turns out to be cunning, intruding and suspicious. The plot seems to be an interesting base for a good thriller. But the fact that it is all once again copied from a Hollywood movie degrades the project to much lower heights despite of a fine performance by Neetu Chandra.

In other words, Bollywood's fascination of getting inspired from Hollywood Flicks continues till date with "Apartment". Director Jagmohan Mundhra's latest offering is an ordinary rip-off from "Single White Female" (1992) with minor changes incorporated to suit the Indian audiences. I am not aware of that whether it's an official remake of the Original or not but after the recent example of "Right Ya Wrong" I seriously doubt on that.

The writers fearlessly take almost all their ingredients for their story from the Original. For instance, the boyfriend getting caught with another girl and then being kicked out of the house, the ad in the newspapers for a paying guest, the entry of a shy girl as the new guest, she looking after the house and cooking for the land lady, her transformation into a modern girl, a good sympathetic neighbor there to help, the mysterious death of a pet, the schizophrenia angle in the story, the hidden past of the girl and many more sub plots are exactly the same as there in "Single White Female". Even the publicity poster of Apartment is quite similar to that of its Original as shown in the pictures.

Chek out at : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105414/

At one end, the Industry keeps crying out that there is an acute shortage of writers and new scripts to make movies on and at the other, they just skip giving chance to any deserving candidates and take the simplest path of making a project based on another Hit film from the West. That's the kind of fake creative world we are living in and that's the reason why no one dares to consider a career of a script writer in our part of the world.

Anyway, as a movie "Apartment" proves to be a very lazy thriller which lacks the much needed surprising punches at the right places. It starts and ends on the same pace and never picks up even after the real identity of the girl is exposed. Actually, the most exciting part of a story based on schizophrenia has to be the dark past of its victim. But here the director takes you into the past of Neetu Chandra in the second half and comes back easily with no shocking happenings or secrets to be revealed to the viewers. This particular part remains the weakest sequence of the movie in absence of any emotional depth and compassion. After the first hour, the plot becomes very predictable and one keeps waiting for something surprising to unfold till the climax but nothing happens of that sort on the screen. And the movie finishes off on a tiring note, just like many other below average inspired products served to us in the past.

Out of the entire cast, only Neetu Chandra is able to deliver a fairly good performance where she tries to convey a lot through her expressive eyes. But still, she over-reacts in some scenes and also her reasons for becoming a victim child remain unclear & unmoving. Tanushree is natural in her revealing outfits but she seriously needs to look after her weight. Rohit as usual is over energetic and doesn't have much to as per the script but Anupam Kher is calm and cool in his short role of a film lyricist.

Technically the film is pretty routine, with not so great production values and simple camera-work. Although the director could have done without any songs in the movie, still he ropes in Bappa Lahiri to give him all the unwanted tracks which simply fail to impress from any angle.

On the whole, there are far better thrillers still remaining to be watched from the World Cinema and therefore this lousy copied Apartment should be better left empty. So, unless you feel an urgent need to watch it, just save your money for its DVD and give it a miss.

If you're looking for a serious movie, avoid. If you're looking for a Bollywood drinking game, this is perfect.

A big chunk of it was paint-by-numbers melodrama and breaks into song at the least appropriate moments (I did enjoy the music videos, as entirely out of place as they were; 2 of 3 stars came entirely from that). I won't spoil the movie, but suffice it to say that no Bollywood tropes were harmed by the end.

The story began quite confusing and disjointed, progressed to making a little more sense by the middle, and then started falling apart completely as Neetu Chandra's increasingly laughable attempts to depict a crazy person reared their ugly head. Wide eyes are just not enough to carry a whole performance. I put a big chunk of the blame on director Jag Mundhra, who obviously made her act that way and allowed such a silly script.

I was hoping this would be one of the first genuinely gripping Indian thrillers, but it was just a series of old clichés instead.

The occasional puns on English weren't bad, though the mention of Welbutrin as a treatment for schizophrenia had me cracking up; if anything, Welbutrin would probably worsen that, it certainly isn't an anti-psychotic at all.

And he found one match among some someone to love someone to dream about and I found a movie for me hello miss dutta.

I did not know that "Apartment" was actually plagiarised from a Hollywood movie. But nonetheless that doesn't mar my opinion about it. I watched "Apartment" on a lazy evening when I had nothing better to do. And frankly, it not as lousy as it portrayed it to be. If your expectations are not sky-high then its a good psychopath thriller (though nearly gets classified as a B-grade movie).

Tanushree Dutta was OK. Neetu Chandra does her part quite effectively without going overboard. Anupam Kher was wasted. And roping in Bappi Lahiri is an absolute no-no (way past his sell-by-date).

Nari Hira/ Star Dust/ Magna films seem to have stuck in the time-capsule of 1980's where they used to do reasonably well in Video films genre. The same effort would have well spent on a creative project.

Watch it when its aired on telly on a lazy evening.

PS: Its a reality check on "Atithi Tum Kab Jaaoge"

This movie will waste your time like mine. I watched this movie for learning English speaking because this is freely available on YouTube in English dubbed that's why. If you also like me who wanted to learn English speaking by watching movies then watch SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, DHADKAN AND MOON SOON WEDDING. This movie will waste your time like mine. I watched this movie for learning English speaking because this is freely available on YouTube in English dubbed that's why. If you also like me who wanted to learn English speaking by watching movies then watch SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, DHADKAN AND MOON SOON WEDDING.