Just Akasmika (Kannada)
Director: Himayat Khan
Cast: Vinod Patil, Sanjjanaa Galrani, Sacheen Suvarna, Tilak, Mukhyamantri Chandru, Ramesh Bhat, Sudha Belawadi
Just Akasmika (Just Coincidence) works as a title for Himayat Khan’s film because a part of the film, at least, is about a serial killer and an actual coincidence. But the filmmaker gets a bit carried away with the title as he tries to use the element of coincidence even to explain the lack of a tangible link between sub-plots and characters in the film.
For example, Shankar (Vinod Patil), we are told, has been living in an orphanage for over 18 years. The film introduces us to him at a point when his parents suddenly come looking for him. They are guided by a police officer who says his ‘sixth sense’ led him to this particular orphanage. Is this what the filmmaker means as coincidence?
Then, once Shankar returns to his home, he spends his time peeping into his neighbours’ houses using a pair of binoculars. He spots Aarohi (Sanjjanaa) and ogles at her creepily as she steps out from the bath, hangs out at her balcony etc. He falls in love with her too. When she confronts him, he tells her that he was only looking at her because he realised Aarohi and he used to be friends years ago. This, he says, he realised when he saw her through the binoculars the first time. Sixth sense, again?
The problem with the film is that none of this has anything to do with the plot of the film which is about a real coincidence and a string of murders. Shankar’s peeping tom behaviour leads him to suspect a murderer in the neighbourhood. What Shankar uncovers as he investigates further forms the rest of this plot. But Khan takes too long to arrive at this plot.
Khan tries hard to juggle two objectives - to launch Vinod as an actor and to try and tell an actual story, even if it is a story we have heard before. The film opens with the customary elements that characterise a hero’s arrival - a fight scene followed quickly by a song. Then a romantic track is a must - so we get a love story and a number of songs with Aarohi. Apart from this, there are ample dialogues to root Vinod as Karnataka’s own actor; he is named Shankar after Shankar Nag, for instance. All of this takes the focus away from the crime thriller that the film aspires to be.
Unfortunately, even when the murder plot begins, one realises that the filmmaker has nothing new to say. Instead, he re-enacts a plot we have seen before in the 1990s especially. On top of that, even though the story is extremely predictable, its presentation and narration too is half-baked with poorly lit scenes and jerky camera movements.
Both Vinod and Sanjjanaa are unconvincing as actors and can barely carry the film on their shoulders. Ramesh Bhat and Sudha Belawadi try their best but they are stuck in roles which have a single shade. Tilak and Sacheen are melodramatic.
While everything else may be a coincidence, a confused half-baked film is definitely not.
ARCHANA NATHAN
