Kaal - Review by Stephen Bourne, Ottawa, Canada.
Two months after a horrifying midnight tiger attack put India's thirteen hundred square kilometre Orbit National Park of thick mountainous jungle and wide open grasslands on high alert, dangerous snake-handling wild animal wrangler and National Geographic Channel investigative reporter Krish Thapar (John Abraham; 'Dhoom' (2004)) and his wife and ace photographer Riya (Esha Deol) are dispatched to the area to uncover what appears to be rampant poaching masked by tales of man-eaters roaming this government protected natural reserve. Young adventure seeker Dev Malhotra (Vivek Oberoi; 'Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na' (2004), 'Kisna: The Warrior Poet' (2005)), his girlfriend Ishyka (Lara Dutta), and their friends Sajid and Vishal also find their way into the partially quarantined park, after their strange driver Bagga tells them of the blood curdling rumours that stain this overwise thriving patch of indigenous flora and fauna. He eggs them on, giving the group little alternative to forego their planned leisure camping and hunting trip to a nearby farmhouse, and turns onto the unwelcoming dirt road over the unused bridge that leads them all deep into this overgrown forest. Krish's company jeep breaks down on a winding rocky path, where he and Bagga's eager passengers unexpectedly meet up and uneasily join forces, but it's not until Thapar's driver mysteriously vanishes - and then their guide disappears - that they all slowly begin to realize that a malevolent evil watches and waits for them in the shadows. That's when the mysterious wandering figure Kali Pratap Singh (Ajay Devgan) appears, saving them from a ferocious tiger attack, eventually offering to guide them towards safety after Sajid is found brutally murdered. With heavy rain and flooding forcing the park to be evacuated, the deadly mystery appears unsolvable as this group's attentions turn from discovering the truth to fighting for their lives against an unseen killer hungry to feed its insatiable appetite for fear and death...
Story-wise, this two-hour and fifty-minute subtitled Bollywood flick has all the makings of a potentially successful horror franchise on the level of 'Friday the 13th' and 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'. Writer Karan Johar's screenplay often crackles with morbid delight, once it turns to these unwitting characters each being systematically consumed by the terror that surrounds them. And, the wonderful use of eerie lighting truly does cast a thoroughly captivating artful gloom over the entire picture during the last reel. Fans of this unholy murder genre will undoubtedly see several resemblances here to other memorable cinematic screamers from the Seventies and Eighties, with this entire cast pulling in fairly good, stereo typically familiar performances over-all - although Oberoi does opt for his usual over the top emoting as previously seen in his recent work. Devgan and Abraham carry this picture with impressive enough authenticity for the most part. However, the main problem with 'Kaal' is that it continually flounders from the use of surprisingly poor camera tricks and low budget special effects without the writing setting a balance by thoroughly capitalizing upon its comparably clever plot involving this deadly forest environment. This one also sloths along at an aggravatingly momentum-killing slowness throughout. There was a lot of yawning coming from the predominantly young paying audience at the screening that I'd attended, which probably wasn't director Soham Shah's expected reaction. Sure, it's clear that Shah wanted to create more than a Hindi slasher film, but that's basically what this offering ends up becoming. It's far bloodier than it is scary, when it eventually gets around to actually dishing out the gory bits. 'Kaal' is also fairly cheesy in parts - which is definitely a traditional element of most horrors - but, those slightly amateurish moments do tend to unintentionally sabotage any lasting sense of fear or impending doom. Most of the dangers ultimately feel safe and uninspired - even when they involve three live tigers eyeballing these tasty human morsels while licking their chops - further ruining whatever efforts this crew obviously poured into its making. I predict that 'Kaal' will probably become a minor cult favourite in a few years, basically as a fun rental for curious fans and really only if a sequel transpires that truly capitalizes on the stronger points now established in this otherwise disappointing mess.
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