wARNINg...

sTAy AwAy!

is marred by killer fish. Koi shark?!

Warning

STARRInG: Santosh Barmola, Suzana Rodrigues, Varun Sharma, Manjari Phadnis, Jitin Gulati, Sumit Suri and Madhurima Tulii

DIRECTOR: Gurmmeet Singh

HHHHH

Water waste of time! Slasher movies work best on terrafirma where girls in a state of disrobed desperation make a dash for safety. Alas, here the characters have nowhere to run to. Neither do we.

In Warning, the entire slasher genre is shifted to the aqua splendour of the Fijian water where true to its genre, characters start getting killed/wounded/ slashed/maimed.

The ladies of this uproariously funny slasher movie get to wear swimwear most of the time. No censor objection since they are in the water. And surely you can’t swim in a burqa!

But yes, you can get killed in the azure acres of silence. Water runs deep when it

The 3D format is used here in a strangely eccentric and miserly way. When you expect the water to surge towards you, there is just a flat silence on the screen. You are left wondering why those silly glasses were required in the first place.

Sigh, Life of Pi in the high seas, was so much more eloquent. Here, the water just seems to invite violence and not of a very convincing kind. The young actors seem to be in it for the all-expenses paid Fijian holiday with a bit of amateur shooting thrown in to legitimise the vacationing costs.

Everyone connected with the film does a lazy, if not altogether a lousy job. I do like to encourage new talent. And I’d like to give these newcomers the benefit of the doubt. There is very little plot only a whole lot of deep water to sink one’s teeth and other body parts in. The intended tension gets suffocating after 20 minutes.

And 3D be damned!

How much and how many times can clearly embraces all the confusion, complexities, insecurities and insanity of his character.

The casting of Chandan’s two friends is also of the utmost importance. The cocky self-centred Gulshan played by Kumar Mayank, is the most fatally charismatic character in this intricate jigsaw of light and death. And the wimpy, whiny, overpossessive Arfi.

Elena Kazan, last seen in John Day, is forced to join her lover in his journey into hell, bringing a whole lot of tragic charm to the proceedings.

Not all of the events in the film make sense when judged against conventional populist elements. The very powerful Chandan plays an artiste on the brink. As he topples over, we get a vivid view into the abyss that separates man from madness.

Though not an easy breezy journey, Prague takes us into the heart of darkness.

What we see is a world manned by you watch the actors jump into the deep end without losing their bearings? Some of the intended terror is plainly bland. And worse when you are supposed to be trembling in fear, you actually find yourself shaking with laughter.

Very honestly there are seeds of a killer thriller somewhere in this watery mess. But while leaving for their Fijian holiday, the crew forgot to take along the script.

Be warned. Undersea thrillers don’t work. Anthony D’Souza’s mega-disastrous Blue should’ve been warning enough. The last and only really successful water scare-fest was Steven Spielberg’s Jaws

This one comes too late and with betrayal. As Chandan’s world falls apart, the film gathers its strength from the rubble that he collects around himself. Sometimes seeing dead people is about attempting to remain sane in a world that is defined by eccentricity and death.

Prague is a tough film to digest. But who said life in the movies is only about the unbearable lightness of being stupid?

SUBHASH K. JHA

almost nothing to offer.

If you like horror films please watch ground level slasher films. If you dig girls in bikinis please watch Baywatch

But if you like to torture yourself with mid-ocean inertia, you know where to go!

SUBHASH K.

JHA