A Flat Movie Review: A Flat: In Low Spirit!

Debutant director Hemant Madhukar's 'A Flat' belongs to the horror genre, but like many such so called horror films, it fails to scare its audience. Strange as it may sound, but there are probably only a handful of Hindi movies down the ages, which stand out as A listers in the genre. In recent times, the Ramsays and then Ram Gopal Verma have dealt with the genre with varying degrees of success.

But a Hindi horror movie, which scares the living daylights out of the audience? Sadly none come to mind. So at the outset, let's just say that it is a very ambitious debut venture by Madhukar. Unfortunately, it also turns out to be one which he is unable to do full justice to.

Just like many recent horror films, for instance, Ramu's 'Bhoot' and the 'Phoonk' series, this one too is set in a house, actually, a flat this time. It's all about a haunted house where strange things happen, people die or mysteriously disappear.

This time round, the story is about Rahul (Jimmy Shergill), who comes to India from the US to meet his girlfriend Preeti (Kaveri Jha). Once in India and enconsced in the flat, mysterious things start happening to him. His father, played by Sachin Khedekar dies suddenly and before he can come to terms with that, Preeti disappears mysteriously. Finally, he finds himself trapped inside his own flat with a ghost for company.

Actually, the premise of being trapped in a flat with just a ghost for company should have ideally made for quite an engrossing film, But the screenplay and writing needs to be skillful and powerful enough to hold the audience and keep them on the edge of their seats. None of that happens in this movie. Barring a couple of sequences, one is hardly spooked.

There is one elevator sequence which scores high on the terror scale, though the rest of the movie is quite bland. The screenplay and the treatment lack imagination. Madhukar also resorts to the usual tricks of sudden movements, an over active background score to bring in the element of terror which is quite sad.

What is even sadder is to see good actors like Sanjay Suri and Jimmy Shergill trapped in the movie. Obviously the film does nothing for them and hardly gives them a chance to perform to their calibre. Also casting Suri as the villain of the piece just doesn't work.

As for the cast of players, Shergill is easily the best of the lot but that is not really saying much. He manages to make the most of his role. Suri is obviously miscast and obviously struggling with the role. Another talented actor, Khedekar is also wasted in a small role but he is quite okay and so is Hazel. Jha and Nasser Abdullah are just about competent..

'A Flat' is a half baked attempt and it shows in the screenplay and in the execution. There is little that the actors can do to lift the film. As for the other departments, the musical score is hardly anything to write home about though the cinematography is quite decent. In the end, a very flat attempt by Madhukar.