Kaal Review

If you are brazen enough to make a movie that has no songs with skimpy clad babes in exotic locales, but only skimpy clad babes in exotic jungles, you got to back it up with some concrete story. Like the virgin roads of the pseudo Orbit Park, Kaal entirely misses out on the fun.

You can actually see the attempt that went into making Kaal appear nonsensical. Set in the best of places a thriller could ask for, with a talented cast like Ajay and Vivek, Kaal still manages to turn up a lame show. The jungle has been shot in at its worst, in the dry season, neither sporting the freshness nor the lushness it is known for. As if on cue, the tigers too couldn't have acted more disinterested.

The first half of the movie proceeds at the same speed as an unpopped corn, traveling from your mouth to the theater floor, does. Krish (John Abraham) is a National Geographic researcher who sports a slithering pet snake and a sinuous wife, Ria (Esha Deol). Together they set out to investigate the case of bizarre deaths happening in the Orbit Park.

Dev (Vivek Oberoi), Rishika (Lara Dutta), Sajid (Kushal Punjab) and Vishal (Vishal Malhotra) are bent on getting some kicks from life, and so they venture into the same Park. Fortunately both parties end up getting car-wrecked, and manage to position themselves in the tiger territory. That makes a total of six sitting ducks for the kill - enough to kill the 2 1/2 hours.

The boys spend time prowling about the terrain, while the girls try to look ruffled in their parlor-perfect looks. There is some petting, less talking, some more prowling by the dudes and some more attempts by Esha and Lara to look not out-of-place in a movie which has nothing for them to do. The movie also has nothing for the others to do too, which is a fact you should have got across when Shah Rukh Khan did an item-number.

Waking up to the fact that this is no way to spend a jungle orgy, half the party is quickly turned up, one by one, flaunting headless bodies. Shifting gears too quickly, the story seeks refuge in darkness, creaking doors, leafless trees, waterless wells - and Kaali - the man of the jungle. Kaali Pratap (Ajay Devgan), adopts himself as guide to the stranded whatever-was-left-of-the-party. While it adds to the audio-visual content of the film, the story still has to be carried on a few more headless shoulders.

Kaali has a bee in his bonnet about following the jungle rules - like, not going near water brooks which look like water brooks, and not crossing the bridge on foot, which also could not be crossed by any other way.

The sheer illogic of all the killings, the missing tigers, the immense paucity of speech, and the desperate attempts of John Abraham to perfect monosyllables, become too much - even for the writers to handle - so they toil to get out of this one.

To tie the glaring loopholes, they come up with a very novel idea - blame it all on God Almighty and his spirits, and just go home. Time-up for Kaal, and might also be so for Shah Rukh-Karan joint-fiasco. The movie might also do a bad one for Vivek Oberoi, who appears to look uncomfortable in the role of out-of-time bonhomie, and Ajay Devgan, who looks simply embarrassed.