20131106: Bollywood Review--Ragini MMS

Ragini MMS

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Indian live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 93 minutes, drama, horror, thriller.  Spoken word is Hindi; subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 1,143 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 33% liked it from 40 user ratings.
4. HuluPlus: 'The weekend getaway quickly changes gears as they find themselves in a house that has been rigged with cameras. The cameras that were meant to capture love-making are witness to something that is beyond the realm of human understanding.'
5. Directed by: Pawan Kripalani.
6. Starring: Kainaz Motivala as Ragini,  Raj Kumar Yadav as Uday,  Mangala Ahire as Witch, Harsh as Friend-1, Janice as Pia.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Uday and Ragini go on a trip to enjoy each other's company at a secluded house.  Uday records some of this with his handheld.  At the house they stay at, there were many cameras, so much of the movie does not suffer from Uday's shaky hands.


2. The MMS is for Multimedia Messaging Service, which allows for multimedia content to be sent over a variety of devices.  This would allow for online sex escapades and the like. As in many USA/UK horror films of recent vintage, way too many frames of the movie are of rooms where nothing is moving; perhaps with sound, perhaps not.


3. Uday handcuffs Ragini to a bed; they start intimate activities, but paranormal influences put them off before they get anywhere.  Uday cannot find the key to the cuffs.  Nice.  Ragini sees the cameras, and is displeased with Uday.


4. A voice from somewhere repeats 'I am not a witch,' 'I did not kill my children,' and 'This is my house.'


5. There is a long interval of Ragini, alone, suffering, trying to figure out how to get free of the cuffs and the bed.  Ragini finally gets loose about the time that two other people are about to open up the house.  She never connects with the two men; she has trouble flagging down the infrequent vehicles on a nearby road.


6. Toward the end, the witch drags Ragini back to the house, but somehow does not manage to kill her.  This makes no particular sense given the ease at which it dispatched the men.


3. Conclusions
1. Why was this rated R?  For language, I suppose, certainly not for skin.  The horror aspect was rather light both for suspense and for gore.
2. This is a cheap jack horror film made with hand held cameras and fixed web cams.  Most of the conversation is in English; a bit is in Hindi.
3. The end was another cheesy element, and could have been dropped without loss.
4. One line summary: Blair Witch meets Paranormal Activity done badly with Indian actors.
5. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Web cam quality at best; hand-held unsupervised at worst.


2. Sound: 7/10 Better than the video.


3. Acting: 5/10 Kainaz Motivala was fairly good; everyone else was rather bad.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 In 93 minutes I experienced about 30 minutes of irritation (the hand-held camera part), and 63 minutes of boredom from the web-cam segments.  'The medium is the message' is all too true here.  I did not see much storytelling done.