Rating: D+
Dir: Farhan M. Khan
Star: Afzaal Nabi
Dear Tubi. You may want to stop film-makers from being able to write their own synopses for movies on your platform. Because that’s the only reason I can possibly imagine this appears with the following description: “A must-watch for those who crave heart-pumping thrills, this film puts a chartered accountant against all odds in a deadly jungle with a giant spider.” Um, about that… The reality is, it is only a “must-watch” for those who crave bad movie goodness, with really poor special effects, a nonsensical plot and no actual resolution. Ok, guilty as charged, m’lud. Admittedly, I had a strong suspicion going in, that this was the case, and all expectations were energetically met. Certainly can’t argue with the “Something you have never seen before” tag-line.
I do have to wonder if this was a Joel Silver production. Kevin Smith had a glorious bit in his one-man show about working on a Superman sequel for Silver, who insisted the Man of Steel needed to fight a giant spider in the third act. The spider here feels every bit as out of place: the film would have made as much (and, arguably, more) sense entirely without it. The chartered account in question is Mustafa Khan (Nabi), who wakes to find himself in a car in the middle of a forest, having apparently been knocked out and abducted. There is a mobile phone, but his calls for help meet a lukewarm response, and the location service has been disabled on it too.
As well as the outbound calls, he receives inbound, menacing calls from his kidnapper, who demands fifty million rupees for his safe release. Mustafa attempts to leave the car and walk to freedom, but doesn’t get far before a really badly-integrated CGI spider shows up. This is in line with the other terrible CGI animals who are copy-pasted onto the opening credits. Still, they’re enough to drive him back to the safety of the car: the spider, meanwhile, wanders off, presumably to ponder its invulnerability to the square-cube law. Rinse, repeat. More phone-calls. More half-assed spider encounters. The authorities eventually close in, only to arrive at a completely different car entirely. Oops, I’ve spoiled it. Roll credits.
Mercifully, it runs less than an hour, top to tail. This is still about 45 minutes longer than it should, given the content. Especially if the makers had done the wisest thing, and removed all the arachnids of unusual size from the movie. I will say, Nabi doesn’t seem like a bad actor, and he’s the only person we see for the entire film. Even though almost his entire performance is literally phoned in, with occasional breaks to make tearful videos to his family, there are points where it does generate something approaching an emotional connection. Everything else, however, is entirely half-assed, with the witless script a particularly sore point, making no sense. You should not expect a “When Pakistani Animals Attack” feature to appear here, any time soon.