Review: The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say. That’s exactly how Missing turns out. This mystery movie has an interesting premise that fails to create the right impact. A small girl goes missing in the dead of the night, but the parents of this little girl run around in the exotic locales of a Mauritius resort like headless chickens. In all fairness, you don’t expect shocked parents to be composed in their behaviour, but the way things play out in Missing, pushes the idea of suspension of disbelief, way beyond its limits. This hotchpotch screenplay is full of formulaic movie tropes. The execution is so amateur and the performances so absurd that the film becomes unintentionally funny.
One of the biggest problems with the film is the fact that it’s based in a Mauritian location that looks like the perfect honeymoon resort. It’s the last place you’d expect to find terror. And yet, Manoj Bajpayee’s Sushant and Tabu’s Aparna are presented in these exotic locales in picture perfect frames. Sunny beaches and fancy gardens aren’t the places where you can see yourself pulsating with fear or intrigue. The inconsistent performances of Manoj Bajpayee and Annu Kapoor don’t help the prospects of the film either. You don’t need an eye for detail to notice that Bajpayee’s attempts at being flirtatious isn’t convincing. He just seems hopelessly out of place. He does redeem himself during the latter parts of the film, but it’s a classic case of being a little too late. Annu Kapoor as the Indo-Mauritian version of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, is laughable. Even worse are his pronunciations of ‘merci’ and ‘s’il vous plaît’. It doesn’t help that his surname is Buddhu. Tabu’s performance, though inconsistent, is the only redeeming feature of this drab drama.
As the film moves on, the situations, the characters and the plot become more obnoxious. The suspense around the missing girl wears thin, with every passing scene. By the time the climax arrives, unravelling the mystery doesn’t matter anymore. Writer-director Mukul Abhyankar’s debut film is a half-baked thriller. With all it’s complexity he had a strong story at hand, but his vision and technique as a director doesn’t supplement his creative abilities. The background score of the film is a tad bit loud while the editing is lacklustre.
What good is a thriller that’s not thrilling? It gets worse when you start laughing at a mystery movie. Any and all prospect of this film is lost in the midst of shoddy filmmaking.
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