Raaz 3

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta, Bipasha Basu

Director: Vikram Bhatt

Producer/s: Mahesh Bhatt, Mukesh Bhatt

Writer: Shagufta Rafique

Music Director: Jeet Ganguly, Rashid Khan

Singers: Javed Ali, Shafqat Ali Khan, Shreya Ghoshal, K K, Sonu Nigam

Plot: The story revolves around Shanaya (Bipasha Basu), an actress at the height of her success. She gets offered the best roles and wins all the awards she’s nominated for. In addition, she also has a passionate affair with a handsome director named Aditya (Emraan Hashmi). This all ends when a younger actress, Sanjana (Esha Gupta) makes her film debut. Suddenly, Shanaya seems forgotten and everybody only wants to work with Sanjana. Soon enough, Aditya also leaves Shanaya for Sanjana, and Shanaya sees her career fading away and she slowly becomes crazy. She begins to turn to black magic and makes it her goal in life to destroy Sanjana and get back the man she loves, Aditya.

Rating: 1 Star (One Star)

Star cast: Bipasha Basu, Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta.

What’s Good: The horror in the first half.

What’s Bad: The paper-thin script; the story of convenience; the endless screaming in the second half.

Loo Break: Anytime in the second half.

Watch or Not?: Watch the first half for some scares.

User Rating :

Raaz 3 is supposed to be a God vs. Bipasha Basu. Or something of that sorts. To be honest, it wasn’t a fair fight to begin with.

The headstrong, spoilt and manipulative Shanaya Shekhar (Bipasha Basu) is the reining actress in Bollywood. But Shanaya is slowly being overshadowed by a new actress Sanjana (Esha Gupta).  The final blow comes when Shanaya loses the Best Actress Award to Sanjana. Even Shanaya’s director boyfriend Aditya (Emraan Hashmi) cannot calm her tempest.

The mantra-chanting-holy-thread-tying Shanaya decides that since worshipping God has done her no good, she might as well move over to the dark side. An evil spirit (Manish Choudhary) gives her some magic water that will help possess Sanjana’s spirit. Shanaya cajoles a reluctant Aditya to help her plan to make life a living hell for Sanjana, but not kill her. So Aditya ropes in Sanjana for his next film and keeps giving her doses of the evil water. Sanjana’s nights are now filled with horror as she’s haunted by scary clowns, creepy noises and more. Aditya soon falls for Sanjana but is torn between his love for the haunted actress and his indebtedness to the maverick star.

Watch the movie to find out more secrets tumble out of the closet as Sanjana spirals towards desperation.

Raaz 3 Review: Script Analysis

The first half of Raaz 3 is not bad. Shagufta Rafique has the scares in the right places and you are really glued to your seat. But you’re never really shown how big a star Shanaya is to feel that she’s lost something that meant the world to her. Sanjana may be an orphan but doesn’t she have even a single friend who can help her instead of running off into Aditya’s arms? The script’s spiral towards stupidity begins in the second half. Spoiler Alert: the evil spirit brutally kills Sanjana’s maid in the first half. But when Shanaya asks him to kill Sanjana later, he gives her some lecture about God being the only one who can take lives. The movie falls flat when you realize that it’s a story of convenience. And how come the evil water doesn’t affect Shanaya at all? The part of Shanaya and Sanjana just sounds like a lame excuse to add some soggy spice to the story.

The dialogues are run of the mill but can go over the top at times by being flowery when not needed.

Raaz 3 Review: Star Performances

She’s evil, she’s manipulative, she’s power-hungry, but Bipasha Basu steals the show left, right and center as Shanaya. Emraan Hashmi has 2-3 staple expressions throughout the movie, but that’s more because of the script’s shortcoming. Esha Gupta is stiff as Sanjana but does much better towards the end (when she almost goes berserk). Manish Choudhary is good as the evil spirit.

Raaz 3 Review: Direction, Editing & Music

You would wish that Vikram Bhatt had even tried to hold the movie together but it just crumbles in the second half. Shanaya blackmailing Aditya and even the sutradhar voiceover were quite unnecessary. And why did they have to show the bottle in Emraan’s pocket in X-ray/strange visual effect? To be subtle, it’s one place you wouldn’t expect Emraan’s hand to be in, even in an Adult movie. Jeet Ganguly and Rashid Khan’s songs are not memorable. Editing is unsatisfactory.

Raaz 3 Review: The Last Word

Raaz 3 has its share of scares but it annoys you in the second half.

Raaz 3 Trailer

Raaz 3 releases on 7th September, 2012