Alone Movie Review:Why not leave it Alone?
Said to be a Thai Remake of the same name, Alone is that film that will make you see how Indianized can things be! The Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover starrer, this Bhushan Patel film is less on the terror quotient and more an erotica. Given a chance the lead pair can make love even if the ghost is standing on top of their heads.
Those who have actually watched original Alone, will time and again face facepalm moments, while seeing this Bolly remake. Well! Facepalm not in terms while the passionate love-making scenes, but when the story is deviates highly from the set plot.
If there is a horror film being made in India, the makers do make sure that Tantra-mantra is depicted and a Tantric baba is called upon to get rid of the demonic spirits. I ask, why? Why things need be so stereotyped every time?
Alone is the story of two conjoined twins- Anjana and Sanjana, and their joint love interest Kabir. While one of the twins dies under mysterious circumstances, the other one survives and marries Kabir. After years, they are brought back to the place where it all started. And then Sanjana’s past haunts her.
Performances:
Bipasha Basu plays both Sanjana and Anjana, and she is doing what she is known for doing. While she graciously accepted the title of Queen of Horror, due to her long strings of Horror filmography, it is time we see Bips in some other role. Reason I say this is because, now even Bipasha has exhausted her resource of expressions and has nothing new to offer. She looks good on screen and in terms of styling, scores brownie points. She is one actress who doesn’t shed her sexy tag even under the horrifying circumstances. Throughout the movie, she has put on some seriously sexy outfits, mostly nightwear and the collection is nice. Now you might be wondering, why on earth amidst a review I am talking about her Nightwear? Well! It is so as the clothes in the film are more interesting than the whole film! No kidding!
The film is a debut venture for TV hottie, Karan Singh Grover and he does an okayish job only, as the lover-boy, stuck between the twins. In terms of acting, we have seen Karan do daily soaps daily, so what new do you expect from him? Just the difference being he was able to show off his sexy body more often than he got to on the small screen. He could have done a better job, but the dramatics of the film didn’t let him do so.
The most surprising factor in the end was Zakir Hussain. He played a psychologist in whom an evil spirit enters and he tries to kill Bipasha. Spoiler Alert! It wasn’t in the original film, no such reference of a doctor trying to kill either of the two sisters. And, this is Bollywood! In terms of acting if you ask, he did what was given to him. But we have seen him do better.
Technicalities:
In terms of story, I am personally disappointed. Highly disappointed, actually. The scriptwriters made it look so stereotypical that you’d wanna leave your seat and go. Had they just made the film the way Thai one was, things wouldn’t seem too artificial and forced. On horror content, there are just a few sudden elements that might or might not, make you twitch. But overall the film’s story just doesn’t fit in.
Bhusan Patel has delivered horror tales in terms of 1920: Evil Returns and Ragini MMS 2, so with Alone we hoped that he would have done justice to the original plot. But even he couldn’t save the film. The scenes just don’t match up. There are points during the film that you will begin to question is it a horror film or a romantic erotica. The director is surely capable of much more.
Coming to the film’s score and background music, then honestly, there are too many songs to be in a film which belongs to the horror genre. Even the placement is odd. Imagine, the when a doctor asks Kabir to give Sanjana a break from the routine, it seemed as if the doctor told them, ‘Go! Sing a Song Together, romance a bit and she will cope from her illness’. But then again, the songs are good. It is just they don’t fit in a film like Alone.
I can’t talk about horror elements as they are almost next to nothing. The film is 134 minutes long and if you sit and count the horror scenes, you can count them on your fingertips. There was nothing spine-chilling or terror-inducing in the film.
Watch or Not:
Those you want to kill time, and wanna just sit and munch popcorn, hang out with your friends in the dim light of the theatres, you might wanna watch it. But I would recommend, ‘Leave Alone, alone’. Not everyone would like to give away precious hours of their life away, watching Alone.
Thumbs Up: Good Body show by Karan; Fancy nightwear options presented by Bipasha Basu;
Thumbs Down: Oh! I don’t even wanna get started
Yawns: Definitely, till you start snoring
