‘A Flat’ Review By Komal Nahta

Star cast: Sanjay Suri, Jimmy Shergill, Kaveri Jha, Hazel.

Plot: Jimmy comes from US to India to make up with his girlfriend who is angry with him and won’t forgive him. He is shocked to know that the flat he wants to stay in is haunted by a ghost.

What’s Good: A couple of scary scenes; the acting by Sanjay Suri and Jimmy Shergill.

What’s Bad: The plot; the suspense; the music.

Verdict: A Flat will fall flat on its face!

Loo break: Anytime, any number of times!

Anjum Rizvi Film Company, Y.T. Entertainment Ltd. and Raaj Varma Entertainment’sA Flat (UA) is a horror film. Rahul (Jimmy Shergill) comes from the US to India to pacify his girlfriend, Preeti (Kaveri Jha), who has, for all practical purposes, given in to her father’s demand to marry another guy. On reaching India, Rahul is shocked to learn about the death of his father when he had visited the flat he (Rahul) was supposed to stay in, just a day before he landed in India. Then, there is the disappearance of Preeti which is also baffling him.

Suddenly, Rahul finds himself trapped in his own flat, completely cut off from the world. His only companion in the flat is a ghost which will not let him go. Rahul chances upon a diary in his flat, which leads him on to what had happened. It turns out that his friend, Karan (Sanjay Suri), had lured a simple and innocent girl, Geetika (Hazel), from a village and brought her to Bombay and married her, without telling her that he was already a married man. He had impregnated her and then left her to return to his first wife. On his return after some months, he had forced her to abort their child even though the gynaecologist had warned him of the risk involved.

Rahul is flabbergasted by what he reads in the diary. What he does thereafter is revealed in the end.

The story, written by Ajay Monga and Hemant Madhukar, is actually two stories put together as one. While one story deals with Rahul’s love life, the other talks about the haunted flat. Surprisingly, there’s no connection between the two stories, prompting the audience to wonder whether they missed anything. Monga and Madhukar’s screenplay is also very routine and although it is not predictable, it is far from arresting, exciting or thrilling. And the reason it is not predictable is because some characters in the plot, who have relevance to the horror part, are introduced too late in the day. It is for this very reason that the viewer feels cheated when the suspense is revealed because the guessing game he was involved in, all through the first half and a part of the second half, means nothing in the wake of the late introduction of some of the characters. Ajay Monga’s dialogues are okay.

Climax is far from satisfying. Also, the telephone call which Rahul gets in the final scene doesn’t make matters any easy for the audience; rather, it only adds to the confusion. All in all, although some horror scenes do scare the viewer, the overall impact is far from chilling or thrilling.

Sanjay Suri does well. Jimmy Shergill is sincere. Kaveri Jha gets very limited scope and she does an average job. Hazel performs ably. Sachin Khedekar and Nasser Abdullah lend good support. Aindrita Ray, Saurabh Dubey and the rest fill the bill.

Hemant Madhukar’s direction is not bad but there’s nothing entertaining about the film, thanks mainly to the faulty script. Bappa Lahiri’s music and Virag Mishra’s lyrics don’t add much to the horror drama. Cinematography (Manoj Shaw) is okay.Editing (Bunty Nagi) and art direction (Sumit S. Mishra) need no special mention.

On the whole, A Flat is a dull horror fare which neither thrills nor chills. Given its poor promotion, it will go largely unnoticed.