Nazar is a Bollywood film with dialogue in Hindi. Nazar means Eye or Gaze. Mostly when used in Hindi conversation Nazar is best translated as "Evil Eye" - for example, if you tell someone they have a beautiful face, they often say, "I hope it doesn't get a Nazar" as in they hope no one looks badly on it or curses it…

Nazar, not to be confused with the film of the same name released in 1991, was released in 2005 and is supposedly a whodunit type thriller. Starring Ashmit Patel, Meera (no second name!), Koel Puri and Aly Khan the film was directed by Soni Razdan and written by Mahesh Bhatt. The producers were Mukesh Bhatt and Sevy Ali and

The film runs for 138 minutes and is certified 15. It is apparently a remake of the 70s film Eyes of Laura Mars.

PLOT TEASER

The Bombay police force including Inspector Rohan (Patel) and his Sub-Inspector Sujata (Puri) are dumbfounded by to the mystery of random girls getting bumped off one after another. Added to this the girls that are being killed all happen to work in seedy dance bars with apparently loose morals, enter Divya (Meera), an actress/performer, who comes forward claiming she's having visions of girls being murdered. Initially no one takes her seriously until her visions come true and then Inspector Rohan takes a further interest in her concerns as well as a romantic interest in her.

Add to the plot an intense and overly protective shrink, Dr Khanna (Khan) and an alcoholic uncle who is a suspect for the murders, an HIV sub-plot, a potential stalker of our leading lady who might also be the killer, and a few other red herrings and this film had the makings of a good story. Or did it?

MY OPINION

Oh what can I say about this film without sounding too scathing? For a film to be "thrilling" and have you on the edge of your seat, there is absolutely no need to random song and dance routines (especially under waterfalls) to be introduced. This was one Bollywood film which really shouldn't have had any songs (apart from the ones in the dance bars) included at all. They just completely take away from the plot (what little there is of a plot).

The writers seemingly have tried to tackle issues of HIV and women having to work in seedy dance bars. Dance bars are the Indian equivalent of strip clubs or lap dancing bars here in the UK. The idea of the seedy side of the things was not handled in a realistic way as it was in Chandni Bar a few years prior to this - it seems showing scantily clad women was more for titillation in this film rather than to bring to the fore issues of women forced into this kind of life.

I'm not quite sure where they were going with the HIV sub-plot but it completely fell flat on its face. It didn't make sense and the end of the film, although a complete surprise to me (a good twist really) left me with too many questions unanswered and the film just finished too suddenly. The motive behind the murders, when revealed, was laughable, and I really did chuckle, which I am 100% sure was not the desired effect the film-makers were hoping for!

I'd seen Ashmit Patel in another film prior to this, can't even remember which film it was, but apart from thinking he was very cute, his acting skills did not stand out at all. He did not suit the role of a police inspector, he just looks too young. In fact, he looks barely older than 19, although I think he was 27 or 28 when he starred in this film. Patel looks like he'd be more suited to a role of teenage boy band member than a serious policeman! He tried to keep a serious face throughout the film but it seemed extremely forced. By the way, he happens to be the brother of Amisha Patel, who has starred as the leading lady in quite a few Bollywood films. She is also very good-looking, but I really don't rate her acting talents very highly either. Maybe acting skills don't run in the family - although good looks certainly do!

This was Pakistani actress Meera's debut Bollywood film. I can honestly say I thought she did pretty poorly in the role. She is an attractive actress but her histrionics were way too over the top and I wanted to slap her rather than feel sorry for her going through these awful premonitions and flashbacks. She had the most annoying scream and when she cried (which was quite a few times), I wasn't sure whether she was trying to choke back laughter! This film is certainly not going down on her portfolio as her work - I sincerely hope she gets some better plots and some acting lessons to boot! She also looked rather physically butch next to her leading man which doesn't sit well with me, either he was too scrawny or she's too large boned!

There was a LOT of controversy over the film, especially because of a kissing scene in the film, which caused outrage in Pakistan, so much so that the scene was cut from the film before its release. A quote from indiadaily.com:

"The Pakistani film star feels not everybody wants Nazar to heal old wounds. "I want the film to be released in Pakistan as well as India, but there are vested interests who are working against me and against peace in the subcontinent. The producer is doing his best to ensure that Nazar gets released in my country, as this is the first film that has an Indian director and a Pakistani producer. I have played my part as an ambassador of peace, and now it is up to good people on both sides of the border to stand by me and support me for what I have done," she says. Meera insists she's not the only one who believes in a conspiracy theory."

I think she should have been more concerned about how her acting skills came across than being an ambassador of peace between two countries. I'm sure there were far better roles to play than the one she did in this film.

I've only ever seen Koel Puri in one other film that I am aware of - "Everybody Says I am Fine" (a rather bizarre film in itself) which was her debut film I think, in which I found her acting to be quite good. She is rather petite and very stunning to look at but her character in this film came across as overly-ambitious and way too bitchy to be realistic. Women playing members of the police force don't have to overact in this way, it's not uncommon for women to be in the police and certainly not uncommon for women to be ambitious. Whilst I felt she was probably the better actress out of any of the stars in this film, I still don't see her winning any awards for her role in this film. Her acting at the end of the film went a bit too in the wrong direction to make any sense according to her behaviour during the film and overall I just didn't get it!

I've not seen Aly Khan before and really he didn't make much of an impact on me, except for coming across as rather annoying and a bit of a buffoon! His character wasn't allowed to develop and just as well as he's another one who could do with going back to drama school! The chap needs to learn a few different facial expressions!

WHERE TO GET IT

Audiorec.co.uk is selling Nazar on DVD for £14.95 and for £6.99 from moviesandgamesonline.co.uk. I couldn't find it on Amazon which was rather surprising! You could try renting it from your usual DVD supplier - I saw it was available for rental on lovefilm.co.uk.

I noted from a BBC news article dated 24th May 2005 about film piracy in Pakistan about pirate DVD vendors: "Retailers are now anxiously awaiting Nazar, a steamy Indian romance featuring the famous Pakistani actress Meera. They are confident that the controversy generated by some of the lewder scenes in the movie will ensure good sales."

OVERALL?

As it was the film wasn't the box-office hit they hoped it might be. The direction just wasn't up to scratch and the story itself was rather poor. Maybe they were trying to achieve too much with a weak screenplay and trying to cover too many issues - it came across as seedy and something you'd expect to see on Channel 5 very late on a weekday evening when everyone sensible is asleep!

I'm not even going to rate the music in the film as I felt the songs were not necessary and just dragged the film out even longer than it should have been!

Do you get the impression that the film isn't going into my top 10 favourite films? You'd be right. I can't honestly say that I'd rate this film more than 3 or at the most 4 out of 10.

This film was released around the same time as another Bollywood thriller Naina, starring Urmila Matondkar (who is the Bollywood queen of thrillers as far as I'm concerned) - it probably wasn't the best of ideas for these to be released around the same time as they had similar concepts - someone who could see into the future - but Naina was much better directed, scripted and acted.