Aetbaar is the latest in the Vikram Bhatt Film Festival. (He comes up with a film every few months!)

With a corporate producer and Amitabh Bachchan as the major attraction, one expected a good show or at least a sensible flick.

But this one is a major disappointment. Given the last few films of Bhatt (Inteha, Footpath, Awara Paagal Deewana, Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage), this one is no exception.

First the plot. It revolves around a small family of three with Amitabh (Dr Ranvir) as the head and Bipasha (Ria) as
the daughter. Everything seems okay till John Abraham (Aryan), a psycho, comes to their life and falls 'madly' in love with Ria.

The rest of the plot is for the father to convince his daughter about Aryan's reality and to get even with him. Unfortunately, by then, the audience is pretty unsettled.

Let us see where things went wrong. First, one expects a remake to be at least half as good as the original (Fear) with a margin for Indianisation and adaption.

But Aetbaar performs miserably on that front. The characters are not convincing, the plot is not fast-paced or
interesting. To add to the slow pace, there are songs. Even Bachchan lends his voice to a track that must have been composed just to cash in on the recent hits having Bachchan-sung songs like Baghbaan and Kaante.

Second, the characters. Throughout the movie, John is in the same mode: red eyes, wet hair and sweaty face. Though he gets violent like anything and mashes people's faces, he is anything but scary. The character fails to instill fear. Bipasha plays a college girl of today, who wants to attend economics lectures and cares about her dad and his feelings.

All of a sudden, Aryan comes into her life and has an effect on her that is anything but believable. He is mad, never smiles, hits her, clutches her neck, yet she loves him. She goes to Aryan's house in their second meeting. And actresses make it a point to mention in their interviews that their characters think and are important to the movie!

Third, the direction. When Mani Ratnam saw the Hindi remake of his Nayakan, his only comment was, "The filmmaker just missed the point." Ditto for Aetbaar.

Slow and not at all gripping, not even when the father decides to go after Aryan. The romantic scenes are torturous. Especially when John meets Bipasha at the disco and, hold your breath, enters her small classroom in the middle of an economics lecture, sits next to her and they talk! Guess the director needs to restrict the number of ventures at a time. He should concentrate on one or two movies a time and at least work on the script.

Last but not the least, the content. There is nothing more to the movie than the trailer. You wait for something interesting to happen but the movie ends before that.

Guess Vikram Bhatt will have to come up with another Ghulam to win back audience trust.

CREDITS
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, John Abraham
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Producer: Mandeep Singh (Cutting Edge Entertainment)
Story: Vikram Bhatt, Robin Bhatt
Screenplay: Robin Bhatt, Sanjeev Duggal
Music: Rajesh Roshan
Cinematography: Pravin Bhatt