NAQAAB review

The film's promos very correctly describe it as the most shocking thriller
CNN-IBN review by Rajeev Masand

From prolific filmmaker duo Abbas-Mustan comes this week's brand new release Naqaab. In this film that's set in Dubai, newcomer Urvashi Sharma and Bobby Deol play a young couple engaged to be married. It's another thing he's a multi-millionaire with a home the size of a palace, and she works at Burger King and pays him rent to live under his roof. Just days before her marriage to Bobby, she meets and strikes up a friendship with an aspiring actor played by Akshaye Khanna. Sparks fly between the two, but on Urvashi's insistence their friendship is kept strictly platonic. On D-Day, however, just moments before she exchanges marriage vows with Bobby, Urvashi has a change of heart.
Up until this stage, the film made perfect sense to me, but it's from this point onwards that Naqaab turns truly bizarre. It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot because that would give away the surprise element of the film. But believe me, you'd never have guessed where this film was going anyway, because it's so ridiculous and unimagineable. Now you're probably wondering why I'm complaining if the film is unpredictable, because unpredictable is a good thing, right? Well, there a difference between unpredictable and ridiculous, and the thing about the twists and turns in Naqaab is that they're absolutely ridiculous.
(Read full review)
Rating:*
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Naqaab is a watchable thriller
REDIFF review by Raja Sen

The best thing about Naqaab is that it's just two hours long.
The incredible thing, though, is that it still manages to overstay its welcome -- with a climax lathered on and on, the final twists merely being the facts that the film isn't over yet. Or yet. Or yet. Sigh.
For all that, Abbas-Mustan (credited in the film's titles as Director Duo) have done their fair share of contrived countertwisting. The proceedings are breezy and while nobody really cries bloody murder -- this isn't really a thriller -- the film is never tedious and the actress is pretty.
So yeah, it's watchable
(Read full review)
Rating:**
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Twisted intelligence
MUMBAI MIRROR review by Mayank Shekhar

Since over two decades now, the Burmawalla siblings, a curious twosome in the Tinsel Town north of Bandra, have amusingly shared their parents, the director's seat, and their suit-length to make films together
Of over a dozen in their filmography, quite a few were noticeably impressive for their times; and almost all reveal two hard-boiled commercial Bollywood directors that the twins are. I use the word Bollywood as much as a pejorative, a masala rehash of Hollywood fare, as the song-and-dance movie projects that it's come to signify now. Almost all known Abbas-Mustan movies somehow find their way to an American pot-boiler of the past, the plot sufficiently curried to suit mainstream Hindi audience tastes: Baazigar (A Kiss Before Dying), Humraaz (The Perfect Murder), Aitraaz (Disclosure), Badshah (Nick Of Time), Ajnabee (Consenting Adults)… Viewed purely from the perspective of a film trade punter, each preliminarily works at the level of a "proposal", usually a two-hero-one-heroine or two-heroine-one-hero service contract to light up posters. The pivotal moment in almost each film is the "twist", or the "kahaani mein twist, hee haa haa" (in the end, or at the interval) that turns an entire plot of unfaithful love on its head into a clever ploy, and nearly every character reveals itself as an unforgiving picture of deceit. Naqaab is at best a valuable addition to that formula's library. (Read full review)
Rating:**
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Ha ha, Hee Hee!
MIDDAY review by Bryan Durham

What's it about: It's not one thing. It's many. Anyway, here's a start: Karan's rich, Sophie's poor. He tells her he loves her, wants to marry her. She agrees. At an engagement party for her friends, she senses a kindred spirit in Vicky, a wannabe actor. The two revel in each other's company even as Karan's still besotted with Sophie. It turns out Vicky was employed to bait Sophie into falling for him by a shadowy voice named Rohit Shroff. Things get ugly as Sophie leaves Karan high and dry at the altar and runs straight into Vicky's arms and his bed. The next morning, Sophie goes to meet Karan to say she's sorry. He tells her to get out. Minutes (or is it hours, in screen time) later, Karan blows his brains out. End of story? What's that!
What's hot: It's an Abbas-Mustan film. Which probably is the film's USP as well as its undoing. You expect to be entertained. You expect the twists and turns. The cloak-and-dagger stuff that's now stuff of legend. You expect too much. The film delivers, to a point. And then they go and throw elements of a black comedy at you. Hmmm.... (Read full review) Rating:*
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