Star cast: Udita Goswami, Tanushree Dutta, Shaad Randhawa, Arif Zakaria.
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Plot: Tanushree Dutta goes missing after she is possessed by an evil spirit and it falls upon her younger sister, Udita, to locate her and also to solve the mystery of the spirit.
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What’s Bad: The screenplay of convenience and confusion.
Verdict: You can’t stop the audience from running away from this insipid film.
Loo break: The portions when Arif Zakaria goes on and on about ghosts and spirits.
Ikkon Films’ Rokkk (A) is a horror film about the spirit of a dead girl and the calamity which befalls anyone who crosses the path of that spirit.
Anushka (Tanushree Dutta) is charged with the murder of her husband, Ravi (Sachin Khedekar), and sister-in-law, Nishita (Preeti). Anushka is sent to a mental asylum but the fact is that she is possessed by the spirit of the dead girl, which resides in the new bungalow in which she, her husband and sister-in-law had moved into on their first wedding anniversary. Her husband had soon thereafter given in to her plea to leave the haunted house as she was being hounded by a ghost there. But the ghost did not leave Anushka even in their old bungalow to which they had shifted.
Ahana (Udita Goswami), the younger sister of Anushka, comes to Goa from Delhi to be by her sister’s side in her hour of need. She can’t locate her sister who has run away from the mental asylum. On probing, Ahana soon realises that it is a case of spirits and ghosts in which Anushka had got involved. Unable to trace her sister, Ahana sets out to solve the mystery in a bid to clear her sister’s name. She seeks the help of CBI officer Ranveer (Shaad Randhawa) and the two even meet a tantrik, Vishwatma (Arif Zakaria), who knows the entire story about the haunted house.
Vishwatma reveals the past of the haunted house to Ahana. This leads her to Yashoda (Ashwini Kalsekar) who further elaborates the story. What Ahana and Vishwatma do thereafter is shown in the climax. Is Ahana able to trace Anushka and free her from the spirit? That is the suspense which is revealed in the latter part of the climax.
Rajesh Ransinghe’s story is routine and Haroon Rashid’s screenplay is confused and also one of convenience. The audience is not very clear about why Steve (Murali Sharma) wants the bungalow, about how Ravi had bought the bungalow, about why some people meet with instant death on encountering the spirit while others don’t die equally fast, about why Ravi takes his wife’s fear of the bungalow being possessed by a ghost so lightly, about how Ravi’s first wife had died (a mystery is unnecessarily sought to be created around her death), about why Ahana dares to visit the eerie bungalow alone, and about why the CBI officer is drawn to the tantrik so easily after scoffing at Ahana’s belief in ghosts and spirits. Also, it seems weird that Ahana goes about trying to solve the mystery of the ghost rather than locating her lost sister which should have been her first priority. What if her sister is dead or in danger? Wasn’t Ahana bothered about that at all?
The first half moves at a fairly good pace and involves the viewer but the pace drops after interval. Too much footage has been given to the tantrik and his portions are often boring. Also, because Yashoda’s part of the story is not very clearly explained, the fear element reduces instead of increasing. The horror scenes are all very similar as a result of which the novelty factor dies down very fast.
What are, however, good are the sound effects which create a chilly atmosphere at several places. That is to say, it is the sound which scares the audience more than the story and scenes. Haroon Rashid’s dialogues are good but only at places.
Udita Goswami does quite well. Tanushree Dutta is also fairly good. Shaad Randhawa needs to improve on his dialogue delivery and voice modulation. His mannerisms are villainish though he is actually an investigating CBI officer. Arif Zakaria should’ve been far more effective. However, more than his acting (which is nice), it is his characterisation which is to be blamed for the lack of his effectiveness. Ashwini Kalsekar leaves an impact. Sachin Khedekar does an average job. Murali Sharma is okay. Nishigandha Wad makes her presence felt in a brief role. Preeti is okay. Baby Akshita has acted ably. Imran Hashmi, Tarikesh Singh, Raju Pandit, Neha Bam and the others lend ordinary support.
Rajesh Ranshinge’s direction is average. He has left several questions unanswered because of which the audience is unable to experience to the fullest the thrill of a chilling suspense drama. Also, there is not much novelty in his horror scenes. Music (Sunil Singh) is a letdown. Background score is more effective because it is loud rather than due to its quality. Joshy Anthony’s sound has the desired effect. Hanif Sheikh’s stunts and action scenes are okay. Camerawork (by Shakil Khan) is good. Art direction (Shree Kumar Nayar) is commonplace. Editing (Raju Kapadia) is not very sharp.
On the whole, Rokkk is an ordinary fare which suffers on account of a confused screenplay. It will not be able to scare the audience enough to make the distributors smile.
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