Midday Review (Spoilers)

What’s it about: It’s not one thing. It’s many. Anyway, here’s a start: Karan’s rich, Sophie’s poor. He tells her he loves her, wants to marry her. She agrees. At an engagement party for her friends, she senses a kindred spirit in Vicky, a wannabe actor. The two revel in each other’s company even as Karan’s still besotted with Sophie. It turns out Vicky was employed to bait Sophie into falling for him by a shadowy voice named Rohit Shroff. Things get ugly as Sophie leaves Karan high and dry at the altar and runs straight into Vicky’s arms and his bed. The next morning, Sophie goes to meet Karan to say she’s sorry. He tells her to get out. Minutes (or is it hours, in screen time) later, Karan blows his brains out. End of story? What’s that!What’s hot: It’s an Abbas-Mustan film. Which probably is the film’s USP as well as its undoing. You expect to be entertained. You expect the twists and turns. The cloak-and-dagger stuff that’s now stuff of legend. You expect too much. The film delivers, to a point. And then they go and throw elements of a black comedy at you. Hmmm....What’s not: It’s all about the digicam. As in most of Abbas-Mustan’s work, there’s always a Holy Grail and this digicam is no less. The soundtrack by Pritam doesn’t really set the pace. The track that plays during the opening credits goes on and on, I’m assuming to tell the world that Urvashi is eye candy. Not that they needed to try so hard. The loud and irritating extras get too much screen time. Vikaas Kalantri’s extended performance speaks volumes on why he’s getting so few film roles. Oddly enough, Raj Zutshi is only left holding a digicam for all the time that he’s up on the screen. Naqaab only picks up in the second half, which is when all the mysteries unravel. In a move probably inspired by most Hollywood blockbusters this year, the flick has a faux climax, immediately followed by the actual climax followed by an epilogue of sorts. What’s that? Karan’s described as a billionaire, millionaire, and a multi- millionaire by different faces throughout the film. Can’t they make up their minds? Or is his financial status as rocky as the share market tends to be? A million here, a billion there... the film’s writers really don’t seem to care.What to do: You have to watch this film to figure out why I haven’t stopped laughing since.