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Afterthoughts
Well! Did we all make it through?
As you may have gathered from my tone during most of the article, I wasn't exactly impressed with the movie as a whole. It certainly wasn't an edge-of-your-seat thriller (at least for me it wasn't) but it did have some redeeming factors. I thought the feeling of disorientation and panic in the earlier part of the film worked pretty well. In particular, I liked the scenes with Mini in the movie theater. Other than the few decent moments of tension, I think this one largely boiled down to a formulaic possession/murder story that really didn't shock or surprise me much at all. Perhaps I'm jaded and have just seen too many of this type of movie, so it might spook some newcomers to the genre. Let me know if any of you see this and have a different reaction.
As for the cast, there are a few points I'd like to make.
First of all, Revathi (Mini) did a good job. While it's hard to flip out and go into convulsions like she did and not look silly, she did handle other parts of the role very well. Scenes where she'd go from the silent weirdo to the "everything's fine" happy girl were addressed well, as well as her nervousness about her date with Deepak. She does the "new relationship nervous" attitude well. Credit to her - she did a fine job.
Master Ateet (Bunty) was hilarious, and wasn't trying to be. I'm not kidding when I say there's just something about this kid that amused me to no end. His expressions were all over the map. I've seen more annoying child actors in the past, and I'm sure there are lots more out there, but this one was special in his own little drunken way. Keep up the humorous work, Ateet. You're making me laugh.
Finally our big name for the poster, Om Puri, is just that - a big name for the poster. He's in the movie for about twenty minutes, and has maybe a dozen lines of dialog, if that. By the time we got to his scenes, I had completely forgotten that he was in the film. It's hard to evaluate his performance as it was so brief. I guess I can say that he didn't do anything horribly bad, so we'll go with that as a compliment.
Negatives:
A fairly uninspired plot. Many elements from other horror movies were present, and nothing really new was done here.
It took a while for things to get rolling. They started with a confusing scene - not a scary one. After that it was quite some time before anything spooky happened.
On a technical note, yes we see you've got a Steadicam. No, that doesn't mean you need to use it that much. Go easy.
Special effects-wise, cartoon electricity and oatmeal don't make for a terrifying experience. A little gross, perhaps, but not scary.
Positives:
The acting was decent all around. No one was obviously screwing up, and everyone took things seriously.
A few scenes were handled well in the unsettling department. Unfortunately there weren't enough of them. The ones we had were decent though.
For lack of another specific positive, I'll just say that I've seen movies that were much worse than this one.
This ratings icon should require no explanation. One of the greatest expressions in a movie ever!
Raat (1992)
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