Review of Aa Dekhen Zara (2009) by Beenish A — 22 May 2009

A Bollywood thriller with the sort of cute premise that might pop up in a straight-to-video American offering or some Far Eastern technological horror... It's a bit of a shame Surti can't find a way to better integrate the romance and thriller aspects, which might have brough a 118-minute film down to authentic B-movie length; it certainly cheats in giving the hero five days to work out how he's going to meet his maker, allowing Mukesh to strut his way through an elaborately choreographed musical number in a Thai watering hole.

Other extraneous silliness: the snapper's main gig is running through forests for "Jungle Weekly", a publication I can't imagine having much of a future in its present four-times-a-month format, and his idea of seduction - which really has to be seen to be believed - involves leaping out of the dark playing a Kenny G-like saxophone solo at the object of his affections.

Still, it has definite fun with the central conceit, allowing Basu to push Mukesh off the roof of a Bangkok hotel on the grounds she knows that isn't how he dies, gradually revealing more and more individuals trying to get their hands on the hero's zoom lens, and arriving at an ending that straddles the fine line between cheeky and cop-out.