8×10 Tasveer Movie Review by Sputnik

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ayesha Takia, Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad, Javed Jaffrey, Anant Mahadevan

8×10 Tasveer inspired from Butterfly Effect 3 – Revelation. The concept of four different versions or viewpoints is taken from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Butterfly Effect 3 has the protagonist trying to solve murders by transporting himself through the pictures, whereas Jai (Akshay) can only experience the incident from the eyes of the subjects in the picture. Its suprising as to why Nagesh chose the sequel Butterfly Effect – Revelation instead of the original Butterfly Effect which was brilliant.

Jai (Akshay), son of a rich oil magnate Jatin (Benjamin Gilani), works for the Environmental Protection Services. He hates his father because his father’s oil exploration is harmful to the environment. After his father dies in a boating accident, an eccentric detective (Javed Jaffrey) convinces him that his father was murdered. Jai decides to travel through the last picture, taken minutes before his death, to investigate the murder.

There is not a single scene in the movie which stands out. The first scene of Akshay jumping into a lake though shot beautifully looks totally unnecessary and there just to satisfy his action fans. One just cringes at the scene where Akshay says ‘I have a secret’ and is gladly relieved when it is not ‘I see dead people’. The whole traveling through the picture is replete with the shaking ala Butterfly Effect. In the Butterfly Effect movies, the protagonist travels through words or picture and tries to change events to make things better but ends up messing something else. Since Jai here can only look at what happened, the picture travel here is nothing more than a flashback device.

While Nagesh was at getting inspired (or copying) from different movies he should have also used the flashback device used in Under Suspicion. Morgan Freeman, a cop is interrogating Gene Hackman and is then shown in Gene Hackman’s story asking him specific details. That way Akshay would have been at the scene of the crime asking the suspects questions and that would have made the movie much more interesting. Instead we have Akshay sit with his mouth and eyes wide open when he travels through the picture. Akshay traveling four times to view four different versions and requiring medical help each time only exasperates the viewer.

As much as the whole travel through the picture may require a suspension of disbelief it is still ok as a supernatural power. But the way the nurse in Canada goes about with a blood transfusion in a store room is beyond ridiculous. A trained nurse in Canada would be so cool as to risk her job and life is just unbelievable. She even hands him out a life saving injection as if it is some candy.

The whole star cast looks like they are on some tranquilizers. Akshay Kumar is mellowed and subdued. Ayesha Takia is horrible for the most part except in the last few scenes. Girish Karnad and Sharmila Tagore are wasted. Javed Jaffery is ok as the paranoid and dumb detective. His Hyderabadi accent though is good only in parts. The Hyderabadi lingo is not the genuine one, but it’s rather the one spoken in towns bordering Hyderabad. If you want to experience the real Hyderabadi accent watch the laugh riot The Angrez instead.

There are some great outdoor locales and the cinematography is good. The movie should have been directed by some one like Abbas Masthan and it could have been a good fast paced thriller. Instead the movie is boring and seems lengthy even though the movie is under 2 hrs. The whole confrontation between the father and the son because of environmental reasons seems stupid and the scene where Jai is not even willing to listen to what his father is trying to say is just ridiculous. Instead the father could have hated Jai because he held him responsible for the childhood incident. The movie also has no reason to be set in Canada.

There is also no explicable reason for the murderer to murder Jatin (Benjamin Gilani) and its baffling as to why he does not tell them who he really is. There is an unnecessary scene of child abuse and the director tries to falsely imply that victims of child abuse grow up to be criminals. It’s just that the reasoning given for all the actions in the movie are ludicrous.

Nagesh Kukunoor’s writing and direction are shoddy to say the least. He has borrowed from a B-grade movie and the result is there to see for. The ending is absolutely ridiculous where he invents a new character so that the viewers cannot guess the identity of the murderer. Yet there are enough clues given. What is completely stupid is that Savitri (Sharmila Tagore), after finding out the identity of the murderer, does not tell her son Jai who he is. Instead, she tells him where he can find the pictures so that he can find out for himself. In the end its the viewer who is depleted, badly in need of a blood transfusion.

Rating: 1 / 5 (Worse)