Nazar – leaves a lot to be desired

Rating:- *1/2

Divya [Meera] is a successful stage show artiste. However, she leads a secluded life after her parents' demise. While driving back from her shoot one night, she meets with an accident that turns her life upside down.

Divya is suddenly haunted by strange visions of unnerving murders that make her believe that she is going over the edge. As the story unfolds, she meets Special Investigating Officer Rohan [Ashmit Patel], who is uncovering a case of serial killings of bar dancers.

Although Rohan's colleague [Koel Purie] refuses to buy Divya's story, terming it as hallucination, Rohan believes in Divya and decides to pursue the case far more vigorously. In the process, Rohan and Divya are attracted to each other and gradually fall in love.

But the growing friendship between Rohan and Divya bothers Tarun [Aly Khan], a doctor, who openly professes his feelings to Divya time and again.

NAZAR starts off brilliantly. With everything well laid out in the first 30 minutes of the film, you expect the narrative to get far more riveting as the mystery deepens. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen!

The problem with the film lies clearly in its screenplay.

The second flaw is the romantic track between Ashmit and Meera. In the post-interval portions, Meera runs wild on that dark street where she first met the lady who was murdered, but soon after this sequence comes a 'dream song', with a skimpily dressed Meera and Ashmit dancing under a waterfall. This erotic track [the title song] is well filmed, no doubt, but its placement is all wrong. Who'd even think of romance when life is on the edge?

The finale is another downer. The identity of the killer does startle you, but the motive behind the killings is such an anti-climax.

Director Soni Razdan has handled the eerie moments efficiently, with some supernatural moments making you chew your nails in anxiety, but she is letdown by the writing. What’s more, the film moves at a leisurely pace in the post-interval portions, which detracts from the impact.

As for music, the film has four songs in all , and the title track is quite pleasing to the ears. However, in toto the the music of NAZAR compares poorly with the other films of the Bhatt camp,and cinematography is patchy.

NAZAR rests on Meera's shoulders and the Pakistani actor does impress you in certain portions.

Ashmit Patel is functional. Aly Khan is effective.

On the whole, NAZAR has a few scary moments to bank upon, but a weak screenplay is its biggest undoing.