Zee Studios and Bravo Entertainment’s Kapkapiii (UA) is the story of six friends whose lives are turned upside down because of their fascination with the Ouija board. The friends, along with a few others, keep talking to spirits via the Ouija board, but things go terribly wrong after a point of time.
Manu (Shreyas Talpade), Rivin (Abhishek Kumar), Nanku (Jay Thakkar), Achyut (Dinkar Sharma), Nirup (Varun Pandey) and Vijay (Dheerendra Tiwari) are close friends who stay in the same house. On the top floor of the same house live Kavya (Siddhi Idnani) and Madhu (Sonia Rathee). Manu leads the group into playing the Ouija board where they can talk to spirits and seek answers to any questions from spirits of the dead. What begins as a pastime turns into a nightmare when the spirit starts wreaking havoc on the eight of them. Some friends also join in sometimes during the Ouija board encounters. One day, Kabir (Tusshar Kapoor), who is a friend of Manu, comes visiting them. His behaviour is so weird that it is actually eerie. What happens thereafter?
The film is based on Jithu Madhavan’s Malayalam film, Romancham. Saurabh Anand and Kumar Priyadarshi’s story looks scattered and lacks cohesiveness. The duo’s screenplay is made up of many anecdotes, some of which are frightening and some funny but not consistently so. The incidents are often left incomplete in the sense that it is not revealed what happened after a scary or weird incident. Consequently, the audience do not get the feeling of having seen anything wholesome or complete. Many of the scenes of horror are not chilling enough. Similarly, many of the comic scenes don’t bring the house down with laughter. Yes, some scenes do have the desired impact but they are few and far between. The overall impact is not half as effective as it ought to have been. Saurabh Anand and Kumar Priyadarshi’s dialogues are okay.
Shreyas Talpade is very entertaining as Manu. His sense of comic timing deserves special mention. Tusshar Kapoor is fantastic as Kabir. He plays the mysterious friend of Manu so beautifully that he ups the intrigue value of the drama. Abhishek Kumar is endearing in the role of Rivin. Jay Thakkar makes his mark as Nanku. Dinkar Sharma does justice to his role as Achyut. Varun Pandey has his moments as Nirup. Dheerendra Tiwari is effective as Vijay. Siddhi Idnani is fair as Kavya. Sonia Rathee does a reasonable job as Madhu. Zakir Hussain is very good as Radhe Shyam. Dibyendu Bhattacharya shines in a brief appearance as Jamil. Sahil Verma makes his presence felt as DJ. Akhil Kaimal makes a fair impact as Sukhi. Ishita Raj Sharma is nice in a cameo appearance. Arjun Shastri (as Baaru), Raghav Binani (as shopkeeper Tushar), Priyanka Shekhar (as nurse Naina), Virika Solanki (as Neha), Shyam Gopal (as Neha’s father), Jaspal Kaur (as Kabir’s mother), Abhishek Gaikwad (as the doctor), Manmeet Kaur (as Anamika) and the others barely pass muster.
Sangeeth Sivan’s direction is average. He has neither made a laugh riot nor a terrifying fare. Ajay Jayanthi’s music is alright but the songs are not of the popular variety. Lyrics (Ginny Diwan, Saurabh Anand and Ajay Jayanthi) are so-so. Chinni Rekha Prakash’s choreography is okay. Ajay Jayanthi’s background music is decent. Deep Sawant’s cinematography is quite good. Rupesh Kumar Pandey’s production designing is functional. Bunty Nagi’s editing could’ve been sharper.
On the whole, Kapkapiii has its moments but they just aren’t enough. In the final tally, it will go largely unnoticed.
Released on 23-5-’25 at Inox (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay by Zee Studios. Publicity & opening: poor. …….Also released all over. Opening was weak everywhere.