Hide & Seek

Rating: *

A deserted shopping mall at night can be a very scary place. Mannequins who look as if they could start walking out of their glass cages any moment. Closed cubicles whose slightly ajar doors could hide monsters. Eerie dim lights,throwing long shadows in endless corridors.

‘Hide & Seek’ lets loose a bunch of childhood friends,now adults,in a mall over-run with all sorts of strange critters : a Santa with a sword,a foul-mouthed ‘tapori’,a confused soul who walks in his sleep ( he’s just come away from an institution after a long stay),a sleek-looking model,and a suave executive type. They have been deeply scarred by an event that happened while they were teenagers,and more than a decade later,someone bags each one of them,and gets them together in the mall. The idea,is,of course,vengeance.

‘Hide and Seek’ tries to be a Bollywood slasher film,but it doesn’t have the requisite thrill-and- chill factor. Purab Kohli is the only well-known face,so he has the largest part ( he’s the one who’s been let loose from the asylum),and if you are a fan of movies in which masked figures with sharp objects go after screaming victims,all of whom manage to reveal a body part or two at all times,the better to be skewered,you will know how it will end. Of the rest,Arjan Bajwa plays a ‘tapori’ with shifting sartorial tastes : his long ‘kurta’ turns into a checked shirt midway. Maybe he went shopping while dodging the killer Santa?

The end should have been a shocker. But,given the general loose tone of the film,it’s not.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com