Click

Rating: *

This is Sangeeth Sivan’s tribute to Japanese horror films,and it features one chalky-faced,dead-eyed,long-haired ghost,who will remind you of the girl in ‘The Ring’. That one squelched her way out of a TV set,this one climbs out of a camera.

See,Avi ( Talpade) is a photographer. One night,he and girl-friend ( Sada) ram their car into a girl,and leave her for dead. Strange things begin happening : the photographs that Avi takes have smudges on them,which you and I can barely see,but are immediately comprehensible to everyone in the film. Something is happening,Avi,says the girl-friend,her voice a quiver. Obligingly,lights in the apartment dim,rose petals strewn on the floor ( Avi has set up a romantic evening for them,see?) start fluttering,a breeze starts blowing,and droplets of blood start flowing.

Sivan’s so busy setting the scene that he ignores the bumps and holes in his story. After a first half of all this stuff,the second half builds up into the apparition appearing some more. Turns out that it is an ex-girlfriend ( Ullal),who came to a tragic end,and who is now out for revenge,see?

For a supposed scare-fest,there is only one real heart-stopper of a scene in ‘Click’. In the rest,you look upon the antics of Talpade in curly locks,Sada in longer,curlier locks,and Ullal ( yep,the very same baby-faced Aishwarya look-alike who played Salman Khan’s love-interest in ‘Lucky’ some years ago),as the decidedly luckless ghost,with resignation.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com