Jaadu, the lovable alien of Koi Mil Gaya isn’t alone anymore. Sci-fi comes to India with a bang. Not in the shape of extra-terrestrials and supernatural beings, but more in the form of time travel and paranormal occurrences.
After 13B, which serenaded a futuristic television set, the focus this week is on an equally empowered camera that captures the future in its sepia frames. The million-dollar invention falls into the hands of a down-and-out wild life photographer, Ray Acharya (Neil Nitin Mukesh) after its inventor — the shutterbug’s grandad — dies. Not much of a legacy, laments the jobless bloke who’s down to his last penny and doesn’t have much to do, other than talk to the stray pigeons on his window or play voyeur to Simi (Bipasha Basu), the sexy DJ in the opposite apartment. In one such idle moment, he clicks her picture with the old camera while she’s sashaying in her room, only to discover a photograph that shows her being shot in a bar. Time for Ray to jump into action and find a new focus to his going-nowhere life. He uses the camera, not only to save his girlfriend’s life, but also to make millions by clicking lottery tickets and race horses to know their future. It doesn’t take long for the greedy, gun-toting conmen to arrive at his doorstep, desperate to lay their hands on the magical camera. But that’s the least of the lensman’s problems. For he can escape the shooter (Rahul Dev) and the corrupt RAW agents in the bylanes of Bangkok, but how can he escape the camera’s prediction of his all-black future.
It’s a smart new concept, a snazzy coupling between Neil and Bipasha and a thriller’s edge that keeps Aa Dekhen Zara cruising along. The plot does tend to lose its grip in-between, but gets back on the rails before a crackling climax. Neil, who had already grabbed eyeballs in his debut venture, Johnny Gaddar, once again displays an easy charm and an effortless grace before the camera. He’s roguish, yet vulnerable, all at the same time. Now that’s a heady cocktail, indeed! And Bipasha too proves she’s lucky with the boys…Remember her fundoo act with young Ranbir Kapoor in Bachna Ae Haseenon?