Murder 2

The ApunKaChoice movie review of Murder 2. “Just cut off the darned root of the problem.” Well, that seems to be the mantra of the psychopathic, misogynist, serial killer in Murder 2. He’s sure had a troubled past. When the sexual attraction towards women had the better of him, he cut off the damned root of it (if you know what I mean). But when the attraction didn’t cease, he turned the blade towards women and began abducting them and slicing them off in little pieces and packing them in big poly bags (not banned in Goa yet?) and dumping them in a deep dark well in the backyard of the creepy mansion he lives and kills in.

Meet the consummate nutcase Dheeraj (Prashant Narayan) who’s plain lame, and anything but his name. And meet the ex copper Arjun (Emraan Hashmi) who works with Goan pimps and druglords and sleeps around with a PYT named Priya (Jacqueline Fernandez). She loves him, but he reciprocates her affection by doing the obvious in the bed and later offering her a wad of money. “Rakh le,” he says with a deadpan expression.

But Murder 2 is more about Reshma (Sulagna Panigrahi), a young girl whom Arjun uses as a bait to trap the man behind the mysterious disappearances of prostitutes in Goa, not knowing that he was feeding the rookie hookie to a raving lunatic.

Far from being a crank with an ingenious methodology, the serial killer in Murder 2 is impulsive and even downright dumb, and his murders are artless despite him being a sculptor. So the hammer and chisel are mere props while his weapon of choice is something that will put a lot of kirtan-loving ladies at unease.

Surprisingly, Prashant Narayan isn’t bogged down by the sketchy character written by Mahesh Bhatt. Narayan lends edginess to Dheeraj’s lunacy, a discomforting menace to the madman. In comparison, Emraan Hashmi as the cop is mostly left huffing and puffing. His character is resentful towards God, and much like the Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) of Deewar he doesn’t step inside the church even when a semi-clad Jacqueline Fernandez eggs him to do so. In one scene when he stands in front of a statue of a crucified Jesus, you half expect Hashmi to say “Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum”.

Director Mohit Suri displays shocking amateurishness in a lot of scenes. There are continuity blunders like Hashmi’s stubble mysteriously getting bushier or lighter from one scene to another, or a scene where posse of cops appear out of nowhere at a temple just as Emraan rushes in to have a dekko at the dead body inside. And guess what? Once he sees the victim in the welter of blood, a song follows!

Jeez! At that point and threw my arms in the air and looked around to check what other people were doing in the theatre. A couple necking and petting in the front row. The guy next to me glued to his cell. The aunty in the front gorging on popcorns. The uncle looking around, just like me.

This was a film that was supposed to keep us on the edge of our seats and knock the very breath out of our lungs. It doesn’t. Not that we expected some sort of Hitchcockian suspense, or Hannibalistic chills, or John Doesque lunacy. All we bargained for was a taut thriller which Murder 2 is far from being. Yet, credit to Prashant Narayan for saving the day for the Bhatts. For once, the serial killer outshines the serial kisser.