Acid Factory

I stepped into the hall with a fair amount of trepidition, but came out surprised. The film is not as bad as I thought it would be!

The story as you probably know, is about a bunch of guys who've lost their memory and have no idea who they are. Fardeen Khan, Aaftab Shivdasani, Dino Moreo, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzogpa and Dia Mirza are trapped in a huge desolated acid factory, which is what gives the film its name.

 

There's Irrfan Khan, who knows who's who; he keeps calling to find out if all's well in there. Of course he has no clue that there was a gas leak in the factory and all the people inside are suffering from temporary amnesia.

To tell you anything else about the story would mean giving out the hidden identities of the characters, so I'll move on to something else.

It is a typical Sanjay Gupta film, complete with lots of car chases, shooting et al. There are the regular stunts of jumping from a moving car into a truck, hanging off the back of a truck and shooting at the following cops, cars being blown up, bike race and so on. But even these regular stunts are performed so well that they look rather realistic. 

The film is shot in South Africa. Though most of it was inside the supposed acid factory, the locales have been explored as well, and must say, very beautifully. The camera work is good, making the film look slick and stylish. If nothing else, the film is a visual treat, albeit a few glitches in the special effects department towards the end.  

The actors were all decent. No exemplary performance to be honest, but none of them was bad either. Perhaps the lack of too many close ups was instrumental in keeping the audience fooled that the actors have the right expressions on their faces.

Coming to the story. The script by itself is fine. The screenplay is better. It could definitely have been more engrossing, because I could feel my attention wavering at times. It's not as gripping as a film of its genre should be. However, since the film's running time is 2 hours it didn't feel like it was too long. Though I do wish it were still crisper. 

The soundtrack isn't great. But mercifully it isn't annoying either. The song "Khatti Meethi" is very reminiscent of "Maahi Ve" (Kaante), except that the latter is definitely better. In fact the whole film looks like an extension of Kaante; the colors, the camera work, are all too simliar, and I had a strong feeling of Deja Vu.

There was one very annoying factor in the film. English subtitles. All the dialogues and songs had them; whether that is a feature exclusive to PVR alone I wouldn't know. But it did take away some of the joy of film watching for sure.

I would say watch the film once. It may not be half as interesting as Ocean's Eleven, and there's no Brad Pitt in the film either; but it's a decent effort from Suparn Verma (Director), and it shouldn't go waste.