'Phhir': No Agony Again!

If as a potential viewer, you are confused about why the film has been titled Phhir (Again), a few minutes into the movie should lift the fog from your mind when you see the same scenes getting repeated because the director wants to show the scene from the point of view of more than one actor. The same seems quite intriguing when shown in Hollywood movies like Nicolas Cage starrer Snake Eyes but here, the execution leaves much to be desired for.
 
The story starts off with a mysterious bearded gent coming to visit a Godman (Mohan Agashe) seeking forgiveness for some sins that he has committed. The Godman asks him to write his sins down on a paper and hide it in a secret place so he may repent for them in his next life. The bearded gent (whose face is not shown at all) does the needful and pulls the trigger on himself.
 
Cut to the present where a stubbled and distressed jeans clad Rajneesh Duggal plays Kabir Malhotra, a doctor living an ideal life with his wife Sia (Roshni Chopra looking too bimbo-ish to play a law professor) in England. After a romantic number which shows how the couple is absolutely bananas about each other, Sia mysteriously vanishes leaving a helpless hubby to try and figure out what went wrong.

An overfriendly cop who introduces himself as belonging to the 'part of Hindustan which is not a part anymore' (read Pakistan) seems quite overeager to get cracking on the case. A visit to the police station brings him in contact with Disha (Adah Sharma), a 'medium' who can touch things and sense the future or past. Disha offers to help him out and after an initial bout of skepticism, Dr. Malhotra agrees to the helping hand.
 
 
During the 'investigation' for tracing Sia, hubby Kabir receives a ransom call and after a mediocre cat and mouse hunt through the dark and wet streets of Newcastle, the good guys land at an old mansion where they find a letter and a photograph in a coffin like box.

On reading the letter, it becomes clear that the bearded gent who bumped himself off in the initial few minutes of the movie is Malhotra in his past life who had thrown his wife off the roof in a fit of rage after suspicions of infidelity and then on discovering her innocence, killed himself.

With a renewed vigour to not lose his wife in the present life, Malhotra again turns up at the ransom drop rendezvous where… gasp…it turns out that his wife Sia, who had been playing the quintessential bimbo turned kidnap victim, is actually a leather miniskirt clad vamp who had faked the whole kidnapping for filthy lucre (apparently, her pop in law is Mr. Moneybags himself).

Disha conveniently manages to save Duggal from getting killed and the vampish Sia is revealed for the gold digger that she really is. A gravely injured Duggal is brought back to life after his soul has another tete-a-tete with Godman Mohan Agashe over sins and repentance. The climax shows Malhotra tracing Disha to Goa where it is revealed that Disha was the wife that Malhotra had bumped off in his past life. Rings are exchanged… and the two then live happily ever after.

 Though the story has its share of unexpected twists, the performances tend to dilute the effect. It is quite tough to accept Duggal as a surgeon when he dresses up and acts like a college student. Moreover, he is unable to effectively pull off the anguish of a husband whose wife is missing.

Like said earlier, Roshni Chopra too fails to look her part of a law professor at a reputed university though the vamp act pulled in the last half of the movie seems more like her. Of the three, Adah Sharma manages to play her part passably as the 'medium' who is blessed with the power to see things. Though she doesn't earn any claps, she doesn't make one yawn either.

The sidekick actor who plays the police officer investigating the kidnapping case seems quite happy stating the obvious when situations arise and seems completely out of his depth when dealing with the gang of kidnappers who seem to know what they are doing while eluding cops. Mohan Agashe as the wise Godman/sage is quite wasted in the role.
 
On the word front, the dialogues are superbly mediocre, while the music fails to strike any ace notes too. The director's habit of repeating the scenes again and again from the viewpoint of different actors starts to get irritating. Except for a few twists and turns (Sia revealed as the brains behind the kidnapping) which ensure that you don't drop off to sleep…Phhir isn't truly 'once again' fare.