Kaun? (1998)

After hundreds and hundreds of violence laden vigilante revenge thrillers and endless ritual based sing-song sessions comes a film that is both a breath of fresh air as well as a bit of a slap in the face.

Kaun takes considerable risks as its subject matter and treatment is not the staple diet of desi cinemagoers to a greater extent. Though this is a weakness, it is also illogically the film’s sole strength as it is noticeable from the crowd. A desi slasher movie is certainly far removed from 99% of the stuff spewed out by the mainstream Bollywood film industry.

So, before even taking a look at the movie’s pro’s and con’s, let’s congratulate the producers for at least daring to stray from the beaten to death track. To take chances, to try to extend the barriers within film making is a commendable effort in itself – yet having said all that, Kaun fails spectacularly in achieving any of the goals it sets itself.

The plot involves a lone young woman on a dark stormy night besieged by a couple of strangers, either one of whom could be the psychotic killer that the TV news keeps warning of. The director attempts to pile on the tension from the beginning and ditty after an amusing little title. “Kaun? Don’t Open The Door!” wails away the singer to a foreboding beat!

Urmila is the girl caught up on a dreadfully monstrous night, and after she hears the newsflash that warns of a deranged killer on the loose…….well then, we’ll leave the rest up to you.

The film is in the vein of an older Bollywood thriller, “Ittefaq”, but any sign of subtlety is dropped for a much more direct approach for an MTV generation. Kaun employs some of the most tried and tested and utterly stale horror film clichés and formula scenes to infuse some tension into proceedings.

Forever our damsel in distress hears noises emanating from different corners of the house – so every couple of minutes, we have scenes where Urmila is seen slowly edging, nervously towards the source of the mysterious sound…….she creeps up ever so slowly to a door or to look underneath the bed, and all of a sudden a cat leaps out!

It’s OK to have one or two such scenes along the way, but to base a movie upon such scenes!? Here we are subjected to a similar scene just about every two or three minutes for the film’s first half-hour. This was the director’s desperate attempt at setting an eerie mood, and he certainly tries very hard indeed.

That aside, there is the enormously grating performance by the three actors involved. Urmila gives a stupendously hideous performance to rival that of Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls. One has to crack up as she breaks into a fantastic rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to convey to us the gravity of her situation. It’s a colossally awful performance worth going a long way to watch. Here is an actress who dazzles with her sheer awfulness in this role. Could she have been any worse? Could Twinkle have done a worse job still?

Then there is the hugely lauded Manoj Bajpai, whose mannerisms are enough to drive one completely mad. His is the least horrid of the performances as Sushant is an embarrassment in his brief stint. In the short space of an hour and twenty-odd minutes, he must say the word “Ma’am” at least six hundred times – it’s infuriating beyond belief.

Bajpai can at least claim to be playing the role of a genuinely moronic and irritating character in the film, which can somewhat exonerate his show. Any semblance of restraint, every supposed nuance is pounded home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The problem is, and it is a considerable one with this movie, that the effort and strain show through every frame and scene. The whole exercise seems so forced and unnatural, and the characters are trying desperately hard to do justice to their roles. Everything is overdone, overcooked and overwrought. The entire effort shows a very laboured show despite the short running time of the movie itself.

The finale, which is supposed to send shock waves of terror through you before you go home, had us giggling in delight at the events unfolding on screen.
Urmila’s antics in the climactic scenes are indeed hysterically funny and worthy of repeat viewing. The music director also deserves mention simply because he is an untiring effort, if not an entirely successful one, to create some of the tension that is so sorely needed to sustain the film. He does a reasonable job.

Yet having ripped the poor movie apart mercilessly. It is so redundant after the opening ten minutes. Again, we ought to reiterate that at least the producers ought to be commended for trying something new, something different to the zillion revenge thrillers and romantic frolics one is flooded with, so, all in all, a noble effort if a misguided one.

Oh, well, nice try, even though the result is a horror farce of a movie with serious camp/cult pretensions. Please spare a thought for the poor molested cat, and also note that it was breathing merrily when supposed to be dead as a dodo!