Not So Crisp
Film: Pizza
Cast: Akshay Oberoi, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Rajesh Sharma
Directed by: Akshay Akkineni
Duration: 1 hr 47 mins
Rating: * *
A remake of the super hit Tamil horror flick directed by
Kartik Subbaraj, Pizza is different from the Ram Gopal Varma, Vikram Bhatt kind
of films but only marginally. It starts off with a promise with very unusual
opening credits which are terrific, but the second act treads on a very
familiar path. There are way too many of those boo moments and instead of creating
suspense and fright with the unseen, those ‘scary faces’ are repeated so often
that you want to take that axe and knock those ghosts down.
Besides, the structure of the film also has an issue, it
tries to be way too clever on the home run – yes the revelation is intriguing
and only if this smartness was spread uniformly throughout the film, this Pizza
would have been very edible.
Kunal (Akshay Oberoi) and Nikita (Parvathy Omanakuttan) are
a couple who are still setting down in life. Finance is an issue because he is
a pizza delivery boy and she is a writer who specializes in horror stories.
While at work, he goes to deliver a pizza to a lady (Dipannita Sharma) and
discovers that unlike Hotel California, he can neither check out of her house
nor can he leave. Dead bodies, strange sounds and paranormal activity it is all
happening.
This is where the film loses its plot - after all, there is only so
much you can take of the same dead bodies again and again.
It tries to redeem itself by some twists and turns at the
end but that doesn’t quite make up for the lapses before. Plus, what good is a story that deceives the
audience for a large part of the film only for the sake of doing so?
With some trimming they could have still saved the day –
chop off the middle parts and those standard scary moments and cut to the chase
straight away. At least that way, the chances of losing the audience’ attention
is slim. Less is always more when it comes to horror.
The Tamil version relatively is more taut and gripping, this
one is not junk food but it is just about edible.
Published in The Navhind Times on 20th July 2014
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