Four people are marooned in a strange island, getting scared by some supernatural power when, all of a sudden a lion roars. “ Ye aawaaz kuchh jaani pehchani si lag rahi hai. Shayad sher ki hai (This voice sounds familiar. Perhaps it’s the lion’s),” says the lone lady in the group, who seems to harbour a curious fraternal feeling for the animal. “ Sher nahin Babbar Sher ,” counters a cheeky male member of the group, a role played by an actor who is coincidentally called Arya Babbar. The scene turns out unintentionally hilarious in its sheer inanity and needlessness. More such ludicrous sequences follow. The same group sees some mangoes hung curiously in the middle of nowhere in the island. “ Bhookh lagi hai, kha lein (I am feeling hungry. Should we eat it)?” asks one and reaches out for them only to find one of the fruits, which has already been bitten into, levitating in the air. The hanging mango is supposed to scare the wits out of you but I was rolling on the aisles laughing, wondering if Katrina Kaif (of Maaza ad fame) is responsible to have done that to the fruit.
A painter called Vir (Arbaaz Khan) goes missing (he should considering his paintings are plain awful). His muse Raunak (Sunny Leone) is out searching for him even as four art dealers keep moving uncannily from the landscape of one of his paintings to the other to their eventual deaths. There is also a medium/soothsayer lurking around.
- Director: Rajeev Walia
- Starring: Sunny Leone, Arbaaz Khan, Arya Babbar, Sudha Chandran, Salil Ankola
- Run time: 108 mins
- Storyline: A painter goes missing; his muse is out searching for him even as four art dealers keep moving uncannily from the landscape of one of his paintings to the other to their eventual deaths
In no other film this year so far are you likely to have found scenes that have been staged in such an utterly juvenile and abrupt manner. You have Leone call her sister and brother-in-law about her missing painter beau. Their response: “ Ab kya karein (Now what to do)? We are in the USA.” When it is amply clear that they are having dinner in some restaurant in India.
The absurdity doesn’t stop at the dialogue or the scenes. Tera Intezaar is most consistent when it comes to the inherent messiness-it’s tacky in every which way, from the first frame to the last. The tawdriness reflects in every single department of filmmaking. So you have acting that is either automated (Khan and Leone) or over the top (rest of the cast, especially Babbar). Everyone is busy shouting and screaming, surely unable to hear even their own voices properly. There is a gem of casting too-the guy who plays Leone’s jeeju (brother-in-law) looks like the financier who would have put his money into the project only on the condition that he would be made to play a key role in it.
The excess and urgency reflects in the background score that at times sounds like a terrible throwback to The Omen. Be it the exteriors of the houses or the interiors or the Ramoji Film City sets-everything behind the actors looks as though it has been cheaply computer-generated. No other film would have made a picturesque Mauritius look so ghastly.
Lastly, there is some wrong grammar that has been niggling me long after the film. A morgue or mortuary is a place or room where dead bodies are kept. Morgue room and mortuary room is incorrect usage (even if Leone is made to mouth it), room being superfluous here.
