Naina is a frame-to-frame copy of the highly acclaimed Japanese horror flick, Jian gui (The Eye).
Yet the script credits Shripal Morakhia (also the director) and Sagar Pandya as the film’s ‘writers’.
London-based Naina (Urmila Matondkar) loses her eyesight in a car accident. Many years later, after a corneal transplant, she can see again. But Naina’s nightmare begins when she starts seeing dead bodies, ghosts, and more.
Her encounters with the supernatural lead her to believe it is somehow connected to her eye donor. Along with her friend-cum-doctor Sameer Patel (Anuj Sawhney), Naina travels to a remote village in India to discover more.
As the truth unfolds, Naina realises that there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
If you look in isolation, Naina has a few moments that stand out: horror film buffs may enjoy some of the jump-off-your-seat thrills. The director uses to his advantage the ‘sudden impact’ formula of horror films — startling moments blended with loud sound effects.
Urmila’s first brush with the supernatural in the hospital and the underwater sequence are among the better-shot scenes.
Sadly, the cons outweigh the pros hugely. Since the story and screenplay were already ‘borrowed’, director Shripal only needed to focus on the execution. But hasn’t. There is no detailing: there are massive close-ups of a ‘bald’ boy where the side marks on his head-patch are blatantly obvious.
Dialogues are weak and fail to communicate. Certain scenes look very theatric and unreal like the one where Urmila plays ‘kachcha papad’ with the kid in the hospital; the one when she’s desperately trying to reach out to the doctor on her mobile. The last 20 minutes of the film are burdensome and need editing.
Urmila Matondkar is competent, but at places she lets out a gamut of emotions in a single stroke. At times, her expressions look contrived and fake. In films like Bhoot and Kaun, she was restrained and therefore effective. Newcomer Anuj Sawhney is fair but does little.
For those who’ve seen The Eye, Naina doesn’t even come close. Perhaps the only silver lining is that Naina has no songs and is about one-and-a-half hours long. The ordeal is, therefore, bearable.
Courtesy: Mid-day
|
| Reviewed By: Aish |
 |
 |
Related Pictures |
|
|
|
