AKSAR 2

Siddhi Vinayak Creations’ Aksar 2 (A) is a thriller and the second in the Aksar series. An old widow, Dolly Khambata (Lillette Dubey), needs a governess as her earlier governess has died in a road accident. Her financial advisor, Patrick Sharma (Gautam Rode), hires Sheena Roy (Zarine Khan) even though she is way younger than 50 years which is the age requirement for this job.

Patrick is very close to Dolly Khambata but he soon tells Sheena that he is not very fond of her. Patrick has a glad eye for Sheena whom he forces to sleep with him. Sheena already has a boyfriend, Ricky (Abhinav Shukla). It is soon revealed that Ricky is actually the estranged nephew of Dolly Khambata. The aunt and nephew have had a fallout over the matter of property and wealth. Ricky has vowed to drag Dolly to court so that he can get his share of the property which Dolly has in her possession. There is also Dolly Khambata’s trusted lawyer, Gaurav (Sreesanth).

Sheena reveals to Pratrick that Dolly has made him the beneficiary of her bungalow in London, in her will. Unable to believe that Dolly could do so, he somehow opens her locker and gets hold of the will. He is pleasantly surprised to see his name in the will.

The house manager, Bachchan ( Mohit Madan), now confronts Patrick and asks him for a favour. It turns out that Sheena and Bachchan are hand-in-glove to usurp the property of Dolly. Bachchan, who is expert at copying people’s signatures, promises to keep the London property bequeathed to Patrick while changing the will to bequeath the rest in his and Ricky’s name.

But things start happening pretty fast after that. Ricky dies in a road accident, and Bachchan dies of a heart attack. Are these accidents and death genuine or are they murders? Who is behind them?

Is Dolly Khambata safe? Who is plotting and planning and against whom?

Narendra Bajaj’s story is as routine as routine can be. It doesn’t have even a hint of novelty so that everything becomes predictable. Sunjiv Puri’s screenplay, rather than being fast-paced because it’s a thriller, moves at such a slow pace that it ends up testing the viewers’ patience. Right from the start, the audience is led into believing that there is more to the characters and the drama than meets the eye. But it takes so long for the thrills to surface that by then, the audience has almost switched off. It becomes clear to the viewer quite early on that there will be more turns and twists – the presentation says it all. And since there are just so many key characters, it is obvious that the mastermind will use each and every key character. Given this obvious interpretation, there is little left for the viewer to enjoy. Consequently, he sits back and passively watches the boring and slow-moving drama unfold on the screen without being bothered about what would happen to whom. Climax is as dull as the rest of the film. Sunjiv Puri’s dialogues are ordinary.

Zarine Khan can hardly act to save her life. Gautam Rode is at least earnest but that hardly has any impact. Lillette Dubey is very good but it’s a pity to see her talent being frittered away in a mindless enterprise like this one. Abhinav Shukla doesn’t quite impress in the role of Ricky Khambata. Mohit Madan tries to convey everything with one fixed expression on his face, which he tries to pass off us, perhaps, intense acting. Sreesanth is just about passable as lawyer Gaurav. Denzil Smith, Mohan Azad and Rushad Rana do as desired.

Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s direction leaves a lot to be desired. Firstly, he makes it clear right from the first scene that the film is a thriller but lets the actual thrill element come into the narration almost an hour later. Besides, his narrative pace is so slow that it just doesn’t suit the thriller genre of the film. Music (by Mithoon and Rohit Kulkarni) is fair but the songs are far from being popular. Saeed Quadri’s lyrics are weighty. Shabina Khan’s choreography is dull. Rohit Kulkarni’s background music is weaK. Cinematography (Mahesh Bhatt) is alright. Allan Amin’s action and stunt scenes lack thrill. Ram Kishor Tripathi’s sets and Muneesh Suppal’s production designing are alright. Jitendra Shah’s editing is loose.

On the whole, Aksar 2 is a dull fare all the way. Flop show!