Deepa Gahlot doesn't like it either

Abbas-Mustan have found the easy way out… pick a not very well-known Hollywood film, get a writer to adapt it, sign up stars and shoot at foreign locations. Sometimes they hit the bull’s eye, sometimes not — as with their latest Naqaab, which is too twisty—turny for its own good.The other odd thing is that Dubai seems to have become a suburb of Mumbai. Anyone from a poor Goan girl escaping a stalker, to an our-of-work actor, to an aspiring filmmaker, probably could just catch a cab and go to Dubai, like they would from Andheri to Nariman Point. They don’t even encounter a stray Arab on the way!In this film lifted from Dot the I, a waitress called Sophie D’Costa (Urvashi Sharma) is engaged to rich guy Karan (Bobby Deol), when she goes to dine with her shrieky gal pals at a restaurant and is told there is a an Egyptian tradition which says that if a to-be-married girl dances with a stranger, it will bring luck. So she picks Vicky (Akshaye Khanna)—in the first of many script conveniences- and he turns up the next day claiming to have fallen in love with her. He even uses lines from the original (“Just once! Just one glass of water! In a brightly lit public place! We don’t even have to speak!”).A voice on the phone keeps telling him what to do, and there are flashes of him signing some papers, by which one gathers that he has an agenda in wooing Sophie. And she is attracted to his crazy casualness (drinking wine in coffee mugs!) as opposed to the stiff formality of her millionaire fiancé. Sophie ditches Karan, quite literally at the altar and when she goes to Vicky, they have a shock in store. Till this point, it looked like the three were playing games with one another.Audience’s curiosity is sought to piqued by the device of video cameras—hidden and visible—shooting every character. Then the directors turn around and play games with the audience. Without revealing what happens, because there is a bit of suspense—it can be said that the plot gets so outrageous and absurd that film turns into an unintended comedy.No performance worth commenting on, but the newcomer Urvashi gets to preen over the entire opening credits in different costumes, as if it were her showreel. She’s a pretty Udita Goswami-Minissha Lamba look alike – but no sign of talent yet.

(Afternoon)