Three - Movie Review

Cast: Ashish Chowdhry, Akshay Kapoor, Nausheen Ali Sardar

Director: Vishal Pandya

Producer: Vikram Bhatt

One interesting thing about ‘Three’ is that it has been written by Vikram Bhatt. It has been a long time since the director has not directed something he wrote and it happens to be quite a rare example. Before this there have been just three instances when he had written but not directed the film – ‘Dastak’, ‘Bardaasht’ and ‘Yakeen’. And of all three ‘Dastak’ happens to be the only remembered film considering it was Sushmita Sen’s acting debut right after she won the Miss Universe title. The fourth example, ‘Three’, however does hold some promise.

‘Three’ at the outset, sets out to be a story of an extra-marital affair. The promos of the film too had pretty much given that away. However the movie turns out to be much more. ‘Three’ has enough twists to put it in a different league from a regular extra-marital affair story.

It is a story about a couple who stays in a huge bungalow at a picturesque locale somewhere in Scotland. But they are actually struggling to make both ends meet. While Anjini (Nausheen) works as a violin teacher, Rajeev (Akshay) has gone through bad times in his business and is left with no money even to restart his business. He wants to sell of the house so that they can get some money for the business, but Anjini refuses because the house belongs to her and happens to be the only remaining and unsold belonging that she inherited from her parents. They finally decide to rent out a section of the house. Sanjay (Ashish) lands up. The story takes it twists and turns from there... first revealing the tensions between the couple and then Sanjay’s intentions.

While the story is quite new, the problem is that the first half happens to be quite slow. The film starts off with a song right after the opening credits – something which could have been wrapped up with the credits itself, rather than extending five boring minutes of the film. There on things take their own time to turn up. Post interval the real thrill sets in and the pace increases dramatically. Cleverly written dialogues even smear a smile here and there, despite a whole lot of emotions and fears settling into the protagonist’s lives.

‘Three’ has been shot well but could have done with better editing. The film looks very nice because of the location selected to shoot the film. The music is good.

Ashish Chowdhry for a change gets a role that challenges him to come up with something different. The actor, who has so far been seen primarily in comic capers, has finally got something that he could put on the top of his collection so far. He does well bringing out the evil side of himself but needs to work on the timing like how he has worked on his comic timing. Nausheen Ali Sardar makes a strong statement and her TV experience probably helped her enough in essaying a role which is sad throughout. She hardly smiles! Akshay Kapoor does justice as a frustrated husband.

Overall, ‘Three’ is a decent suspense drama. There are twists which will surprise the regular cinema-goer. Debutant director Vishal Pandya does a fair job with the challenge of taking care of the project. This one is a movie for all Ashish Chowdhry fans!