Movie: Pizza 3D
Director: Akshay Akkineni
Cast: Akshay Oberoi, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Dipannita Sharma, Arunoday Singh
Rating: **1/2
Some remakes have their own way of reinstating the fact that originals are no short of classics even if they exactly aren’t. Pizza 3D is a happy addition to it. The film tries to reap rich dividends of its horror, mystery cum mind game mix to showcase itself as a wannabe tribute to Hitchcockian methods, all to woo a viewer who expects genuine fear after experiencing Ramgopal Varma’s more regionalised ways of being spooked. Akshay Akkineni tightens up the screws for this 107 minute ride to reward itself with some slickness. This helps for a while but makes the film uni-layered and simplistic to an extent that the unraveling of the mystery appears a mechanical formality even if poetic justice is ultimately delivered.
The first time director wants to leave behind his personal mark in this rehash of an over-hyped original. He doesn’t fiddle with the masked horror that’s generally raw but makes subtle improvisations in the other parts. May be, that’s where he loses the plot too. Meanwhile, Parvathy Omanakuttan’s mysterious eyes and Akshay Oberoi’s vulnerable histrionics are near prefect complements to the director’s ideas. You see that the smaller details in situations are well organised before they eventually unfold. When it comes to the execution, the haunting aura is however amiss. Keeping the strengths of the remake aside, the film doesn’t grab hold of the chance to nurture the suspense, a similar folly you take heed in the Karthik Subbaraj directed venture too.
Nikita being a horror novel writer is a tool for the film to progress. Kunal has nightmares about getting stuck in a dysfunctional elevator where he’s haunted by a blind elderly man, thanks to his wife’s fascination to watch spooky films in the quest of readying herself for an unpublished novel. Their house even has a poster of the French classic Circulo De Terror on the walls to justify the same. The original in this context may have had lesser screen time for Ramya Nambesan, the wife which indeed added to her part’s capricious nature. The two-sided nature is still maintained but you sense it coming more or less here. It just doesn’t hit you. She keeps writing something in her notes in the former. She simply doesn’t have a writer’s life after the news of her pregnancy in this take.
There is a delicate route through which you unveil clues in a puzzle like atmosphere. You can’t take the luxury to be elaborate or also force the pace a tad too much. It’s a dangerous balance. Akshay Akkineni flutters in seeing the wider picture of the plot. The nothingness for about forty minutes in the haunted house is a distraction regardless of its loyalty to the Tamil version. Whenever you feel ready for a potent sequence, the undercooked dimensions come to the fore. And the 3D ? It’s another case of over estimating the technology in place of a solid narrative. Pizza still remains a story that has scope to be bettered. The film ends on a not-so-bad mode but the wait for its nourishment continues.
Review by Srivathsan N. First published in Cinegoer.net
