1920 movie review : glamsham.com


Director : Music : Lyrics : Starring :	Vikram Bhatt Adnan Sami Sameer Rajneesh Duggal and Adah Sharma

1920 Movie Review
September 13, 2008 8:12:03 PM IST By Martin D'Souza, Bollywood Trade News Network

THE STORY IN SHORT: Rajneesh and Adahh are lovers who get married. Rajneesh is an architect and he is selected from his company to bring down an old castle somewhere in India and build it into a hotel. But there is a spirit that resides there that does not allow this to happen. In fact, two architects have been killed but Rajneesh and his wife are not aware of it. Adah gets possessed by this spirit and therein begins the story.

Director Vikram Bhatt seems to be redeeming himself with this horror flick... everything seems to be going fine till just before the intermission, when in comes Rakhi Sawant to take away the intensity of the fear that he was just building up.

view 1920 videos

No, there is nothing wrong with the Sawant girl, but just that Bhatt's choice of introducing an item song, if I may be permitted to call it so, and more importantly choice of performer, falls flat on the screen. Rakhi comes with a lot of baggage of 'trying to be there' and this exact weight of hers does not allow her to carry off the scene. Also, he was just building up the scare. A very jarring aberration.

He shoots in London and tells you that that piece of irresistible architectural beauty, the castle he is shooting in, is somewhere in India. Very, very annoying. A punch in the nose for the viewer.

The choice of the lead actors is very good. Rajneesh Duggal and Adah Sharma give out great performances. In fact, Adah as the one possessed, gives off a performance as one possessed!! A terrifying debut. She has beauty, which dates back to the 1920s, is dressed accordingly and carries off her part with intensity. A word of mention for Anjori Alagh, too. First she stares down at you from a huge painting, then she walks on screen to seduce the villain and the viewer!

A word of mention here for the set and costume designers. They have done well to give one a feeling of being there in the early 1900s

Bhatt has shown well the way Ada is possessed, her behaviour, menacing talking, her fearful lunges. But he has tried too many things to show how she is cured of her demonic spirit.

What he has shown, in the end, is what he thinks is the way the ones possessed are delivered. This can be debated endlessly. In effect, he brings to nought what he has been trying to build up.

And I cannot understand why someone would stay the night all alone, without any house help (there is only one, who retires to his quarters in the night)in a Castle the size of two football fields.