Acid Factory - Movie Review

Cast: Fardeen Khan, Aftab Shivdasani, Irrfan Khan, Dino Morea, Manoj Bajpayee, Danny Denzongpa, Gulshan Grover, Dia Mirza

Rating: ***

Director:  Supern Varma

Producer: Sanjay Gupta

Leaving aside some pre-conceived notions and the fact that you would not really get to see any ‘star’ power in ‘Acid Factory’, what would be your expectations from an action thriller? If you expect to see some action, some thunderous blasts and a fair amount of suspense then this film won’t disappoint you. ‘Acid Factory’ is not a film which will appeal to every circle of audience. But the ones who swear by action thrillers are surely going to enjoy this fare.

‘Acid Factory’ has an interesting story premise. I saw the film at a press show where lot of people kept wondering where the film could have been copied from but no one came up with an answers to support. While we still need to figure out if it is indeed an ‘inspiration’, such queries also indicate that the story concept is intriguing enough.

Five guys and one girl wake up in an acid factory to understand that they have lost their memories – at least temporarily – due to some gas leak in the factory. With some amount of intelligence and common sense they figure out that four out of them are kidnappers while the remaining two are supposed to be hostages. A strange phone call from someone called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan) makes them surer about their assumptions. However they hang along together, locked inside the factory providing each other support as none remember who is what. However, the narration makes sure that the audience is informed gradually as layers of truth are unfolded one by one. And hence there is no confusion in understanding why the people behave the way they do.

The idea of the story dictates the screenplay and the writer does a reasonably good job. The style of revealing goes well. The dialogues tend to be too filmy and at times fail to create the tension that is required. There are a couple of loopholes in the storyline which takes away a lot from this film. The most important being the huge effort to kidnap someone who is no celebrity and can be kidnapped rather easily. A gang ‘recruits’ one more person to assist this kidnapping. I fail to understand what is the need to hire a new guy for a simple kidnapping? And worse – need to describe it as a ‘big’ job with ‘big risks’ when the actual kidnapping scene is packed in two seconds and needed no special skill of this new person. Some more efforts to come up with better reasoning would have made ‘Acid Factory’ much tighter and way better.

Technically ‘Acid Factory’ stands up to the brand Sanjay Gupta. It is shot stylishly and edited very well too. The producer seems to be quite confident about the product considering he has pumped in good amount of money into its production, blowing up dozens of cars for small sequences.

And actors don’t let down. While Manoj Bajpayee and Danny are delightful, usual ‘non-actors’ like Fardeen Khan and Dino Morea too look convincing. Dino specifically is good with his comic timing which he gets to explore in the film. Even Dia manages to get a tougher avatar. Aftab as the angry man, ready to hit anyone, is good as he tries something apart from comedy after ages. Irrfan Khan and Gulshan Grover are good as ever.

‘Acid Factory’ packs in all these characters into a story which lasts 105 minutes. The part is that there are no attempts to stretch the film with unnecessary scenes. The director does play it safe with an item number which is not required but that too he keeps for just a minute. While first half peels of layers, the second half delivers all the action and some amount of thrill. And as I earlier said, if this is what you are looking for, short and not-so-simple, ‘Acid Factory’ is surely your movie this week.