Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ayesha Takia, Jaaved Jafferi, Sharmila Tagore, Benjamin Gilani, Girish Karnad, Rushad Rana, Anant Mahadevan, Uttara Baokar

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

In his latest, Nagesh Kukunoor dumps earthly pleasures for supernatural hi-jinks, by making his hero capable of seeing the third dimension: Akshay stares deeply at photographs and zip, zap, zoom, he’s back at the time the pictures were taken. Mumbo-jumbo or Ripley’s Believe It Or Not?

Canada-based Jai (Akshay), protector of grizzlies, loves his girl-friend Sheela (Ayesha) and hates his dad’s (Benjamin) big business interests. And then one day the latter pops it, in the middle of an ocean, on a pristine-white yatch, surrounded by wife (Sharmila), and cronies (Girish, Anant, Rushad). Accident or murder?

Kukunoor uses the lush green of the Canadian countryside to give us one of the most picturesque films we’ve seen in a while. His story is interesting too, though you get the niggling feeling that it depends, for its tone, a tad too heavily on sundry Hollywood thrillers: it’s got a live-in couple (Akki kneels on the rumpled bed and asks if Ayesha will marry him; the latter clasps her French-manicured hands, and nods, eyes brimming over), a mom who wears well-tailored pants and jackets, a weirdo sleuth (Jaaved) who suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder, and a colourful psychic (Uttara) who reads cards.

‘8X10 Tasveer’ sucks us in with a nice, brisk start, but Kukunoor doesn’t make of his surprising change of genre—from situational comedies to freaky thrillers—as much as he should have. Situations get into a repetitive loop, and the pace flags. As Akshay prepares to go into one of his many, many trances—hold up photo, stare, let head loll back, breathe loud, and voila, see what happened—you wonder what the film’s editor was doing.

... contd.