Raakaasa Review: Proper disheveled hubbub
Another Indian cinema double feature this weekend means another duo of reviews! Between this film and Biker, I was more interested in this one, as horror comedies speak to me far more than sports cinema. Did this film live up to my excitement, or did it leave me wanting more? That's what I, Brighton Nelson of The Reel Ranker, will be discussing in today's review. Thanks so much for joining me and for supporting Indian cinema... and I hope you enjoy this review!
I think this is a perfect fit for a review to mix things up, so I'll start with the positives of this film and then move on to the negatives. Firstly, this is a very self-aware, silly flick that knows what it is. It's not a laugh-out-loud comedy, but more of an adventure that will make you smile due to its heightened performances, absurd logic, hilariously odd VFX, video-gamey veneer, and youthful bombástica. An NRI going back to its scornful village that lacks a lick of sense to its runnings, it's quite a trip into hilarity as you have to turn your mind off to its preternaturally eccentric tomfoolery. There's nothing quite like a film like this, and if my anomalous explanation thus far has piqued your interest, add it to your watchlist. Yet, just know, it's not going to be much more than a Taco Bell film, as Sean Chandler might say.
However, while it's kind of fun in all its aspects, none of the film's aspects are truly well-executed... This film is, unfortunately, nothing better than a bad film with some minor modicum of fun to be had with it. While I'll likely still check out the sequel teased at the end of the film, it's not a film I'm particularly anticipating.
Let's discuss the horror and comedy elements first, as they're probably the main reason people are showing up for this film, outside of mentally ill psychos like me who watch every movie just because they exist. The comedy here is just passable... The actors do a great job with their inflection and comedic timing, but the script and the story's lack of coherence do them no favors. While there's quite a lot of situational humor scattered throughout the film, I felt I was laughing at the movie more than with it, regrettably. The characters rarely say anything witty or charming, and the situational humor comes from the fact that the story is all over the place, going way too fast through important stuff, to the point that it's particularly difficult to care about anything that's happening. At one moment it's a romantic story, then the character's drunk and charged with murder, then something else happens... everything feels like it's just scenes cut together, not a cohesive story. This is all underlined by the fact that every dramatic moment is completely brushed off with no weight. The best horror comedies are so funny because they starkly contrast with what's horrifying.
And honestly, selling this as a horror comedy was a little disingenuous because, frankly, the scariest things in the movie are the horrendous CGI, the lack of cohesion between the two acts of the film, and the final plot twist that leaves you wondering why it was even there. There's nothing really horrifying here, and everything that could be is undermined by the facetiousness of it all. There are horrifying implications to human sacrifice, false allegations, and being trapped in a castle with a demon... If it were extremely funny, I could forgive it, but it's not that kind of film. In the first couple of minutes, the main character is in the castle, and the film finally feels it's going somewhere, but the CGI demon lets all the tension out of the balloon. Seriously, there were only like 45 seconds of this film that could be classified as true horror.
The film also feels way too long, and it would've been better if it started with the sacrifice bit, with the main character being attempted to be saved by his best friend and girlfriend. We could get some flashbacks as we went along, but, honestly, almost nothing justifies that half the film is setup when none of that setup is all that cohesive anyway. It may not be a perfect fix, but since that was the better half of the movie by a significant margin, and this film is so fundamentally flawed, at least we could spend more time on the campy demon-fighting than on the boring mess of the first half.
The nail in the coffin here is the out-of-nowhere ending. The ending tries to add a lot more depth to the film, but it leaves the film feeling even sloppier. While some of the elements of the twist were emotional and interesting, they felt completely out of place. Also, the crux of the twist relies on a character making a bunch of nonsensical, unforeshadowed observations that conveniently come together in a way that even those who can suspend all disbelief will be left scratching their heads and furrowing their brows. The main character is also a bumbling idiot, so the idea that the writers thought that he even had the wit to surmise such a thing solidifies the fact that the whole film feels like an underbaked gewgaw. I always love to support underdog films that aren't going to be worldwide hits, but I have to column-like-I-see-'em like a PVZ jalapeño and admit that this ain't it, not one bit.
The Reel Ranker Verdict
Reel or Unreel? - Unreel
The Reel Ranker Score: 35%
Letter Score: D
Star Ranking: 2 out of 5
Rākāsā is superficially entertaining enough, but it's simply a bad movie. A high-tier, upper-echelon, guilty-pleasure bad movie, but still a bad movie. The actors do their best, but the higgledy-piggledy plot is mind-bogglingly contrived, bedraggled, and discombobulated, sans the horror or comedy advertised. This feels like it's trying to be the Tollywood answer to Anaconda, in a demonic font—if you like the cinematic KFC that is that film, but want a little bit of biriyani to put that chicken in, this is the terrible movie-mess you're looking for.
Check out all of my horror reviews below! There's a lot of fun ones, including recent hits like Ready or Not 2 and They Will Kill You!
Brighton Nelson
Or check out some of my Indian cinema film reviews! Still trying to catch up on all the ones I've watched, sorry it's a rather brief selection (for now).
Brighton Nelson
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