Movie: 1920 in London
Director: Tinu Suresh Desai
Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra and Vishal Karwal
Genre: Horror
I have a conflict with horror movies at a very fundamental level. They always end up reinforcing the common man’s belief in superstitions, dark magic and evil spirits. Yeah, well, I guess that is the ‘horror’ part of it, the unknown and the unpredictable with a grey tinged mystery around it. However, keeping the target audience at mind, the texture of these movies is certainly regressive and rudimentary in nature.
A Marwadi royal couple, Shivangi (Meera Chopra) and Veer (Vishal Karwal) are staying in London for Veer’s barrister exams. The day he graduates, he is gifted with a necklace by a subaidar back in India. The next morning Shivangi finds her husband having fits and rushes him to the hospital. There he suffers from terrible muscle spasms and his health deteriorates. Veer’s caretaker, tells Shivangi that Veer’s condition was a result of a powerful black magic which can only be curbed by a seasoned black magic practitioner from India. But the expert is Shivangi’s old love Jai Singh (Sharman Joshi) who is festering in his old wounds. Will he agree to help Meera or will she have to pay the price of her marriage for old wounds?
Meera Chopra is like a doll- pretty, adorable and one fixed expression. Other than the batting eyelashes or tears, and my consistent efforts to follow the movie it was quite hard to discern her emotions. Though a movie like this is hardly a platform to judge her potential, hence I want to give her the benefit of doubt and believe that there is scope for more from her. Vikram was probably cast as an extra in the movie, and when noone agreed to play the character of Veer, he was cast in the role. He was like the elephant in the room(it is right there, but you can’t see it only sense it). Sharman Joshi is the saviour of this sinking ship. Though the character barely creates space for his acting skills to be explored, but Sharman’s presence makes the movie tolerable to some extent.
1920 in London is actually not scary if you can get over the loud sounds. There is an element of predictability in the direction, you can almost guess from the ghost will appear and disappear off to. When the first half broke for an interval, I was left with an element of surprise and heaps of expectations for the second half. Teaching me an important lesson on hopes and desires, the second half has a corny redundant storyline overflowing with the sense of sacrifice, forgiveness and so on. The songs, settings, dialogues are either inconsistent or fail to add volume to the movie. Cinematographer manages to set the mood with a grey hued sceneries from London, but that barely acts as the saving grace.
This movie is not even a treat for horror genre lovers. So stay tucked in till next weekend!
My verdict: *
