MUMBAI: Alone has two selling points: First, it is directed by Bhushan Patel (Ragini MMS 2). Second, it stars Bipasha Basu, who exudes enough sex appeal for the audience of the voyeur kind, a mandatory ingredient in a contemporary horror films.

Inspired by the 2007 Thai film of the same name, the movie is shot in Kerala to make it visually appealing. Bipasha plays a double role. She and her twin sister have promised to always stick by each other. Bipasha has to rush home to Kerala with her husband, Karan Singh Grover, when her mother meets with an accident. Her return takes her into past memories about her dead twin.

Soon Bipasha starts experiencing a strange phenomenon. She feels the presence of her dead sister. Only she can feel this. She explains her situation to Karan but he thinks this is because she is missing her sister. However, Karan takes Bipasha to a psychiatrist friend who thinks it is beyond science. The couple then indulge in romance and songs.

Producer: Panorama Films Director: Bhushan Patel Cast: Bipasha Basu, Karan Singh Grover, Zakeer Hussain

The mandatory Babas claiming to get rid of ghosts and spirits and other such mumbo jumbo included, what the film never does is scare you. This is because it has nothing new to show. All this and much better stuff has preceded Alone. What actually happens is that the supposedly scary scenes only make you laugh.

Those who made it to the cinema halls after watching the promos will not find in the film what they saw in promos. There are some intimate scenes and a lot of skin on display from both, Bipasha as well Karan but, again, nothing that a seasoned moviegoer has not seen before.

In an effort to Indianise a borrowed foreign film, the length stretches to 133 minutes, which is a tad too long for a ‘scary’ movie. The film has some good numbers in Katra katra…. and Chaand aasman se lapataa.. but  they do lessen the impact of a scary film.

 Direction is average with no spark. The script can aptly be described as loose. One thing the film needed was some sharp editing. The belief that low light can make a horror film more effective, even if true, does not work here.

 With little scope, the performance by Bipasha is fair while Karan is there just for his body mass.

 Alone is mediocre fare with no drawing power as far as its stars go.

‘Crazy Cukkad Family’: That’s not entertainment!

Crazy Cukkad Family is like a stage play, implausible but zany. It is more like a farce. It is about a family, which does odd things and may remind you of the 2007 film, Buddha Mar Gaya, starring Anupam Kher. The film is about a dysfunctional family of four siblings, all failures. To give a contemporary touch, one of them is gay.

Producer: Prakash Jha Director: Ritesh Menon Cast: Swanand Kirkire, Shilpa Shukla, Kushal Punjabi, Siddharth Sharma, Kiran Karmarkar, Ninad Kamat

Swanand Kirkire, Shilpa Shukla, Kushal Punjabi and Siddharth Sharma gather at their grand family home when their father slips into his third coma. Hoping this once he does not regain conscious, all four are keen to know what is for them in their filthy rich father’s last will. The four have their own traits; they need the money for various reasons. There is no family feeling or love for each other. Before the will can be read, a condition applies: for inheritance, all four have to be married. The siblings devise their individual ways out of this condition.

While all four are failures in their respective lives, they try to conceal this fact from others. However, they can’t hide their real standing from each other for long as each kin’s secret is out.

The father has no long term plan to remain in coma or to kick the bucket. He soon regains consciousness only to reveal that in the old filmy style, he has bequeathed all his wealth to the ‘wafaadar’ servant of the house. However, the servant is not selfish and asks his boss to leave his all for the children on the condition that they spend time with him every year!

Even in this 90 minute farce, the makers needed a narrator who interrupts at regular intervals to explain to the viewer what is happening: either they think the viewer is dumb or they know their inability to let the script and the visuals do their job.  It is a passé theme further marred by bad scripting. Resultantly, the debutant director, Ritesh Menon, is totally at sea. The film boasts of an item number, Sexywala pakoda, in an otherwise mundane music score. Swanand Kirkire emerges the best while Shilpa Shukla is fair. The rest pass muster. Crazy Cukkad Family is a lost cause.