Baaz - A Bird in Danger (2003)
Cast: Jackie Shroff, Sunil Shetty, Karisma Kapoor, Dino Morea
Director: Tinnu Verma
Music Director: Ismail Darbar
Synopsis: Current Bollywood trend for whodunnit slasher films continues with this dud
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

Baaz is a feast for those who revel in masochism—that is, the pain of sitting through something so preposterously awful as this. And here I was believing that, with a title like A Bird in Danger!, I might actually enjoy the sheer awfulness of the film enough to have a good laugh. Sadly, the only pleasure I managed to derive from it was a refreshing snooze somewhere around the halfway mark.

Thrillers are suddenly all the rage and, following Kucch To Hai, we have yet another serial killer on the loose. The film opens at a beauty contest where Aditi Gowariker is crowned Miss Nainital after poor old Preeti Jhangiani takes an unexpected dip in the swimming pool—a moment that, rather embarrassingly, provided me with the greatest enjoyment of the entire film.

A jubilant Miss Nainital returns home and chats happily with her sister, who promptly disappears off for a shower. The lights suddenly go out, a mysterious shadow passes behind the bathroom curtain and our killer strikes. For reasons known only to himself, he first attempts to strangle the poor girl, then beats her senseless through what appears to be every available fibreglass table and window in the house. Unsatisfied, he produces a whip, then a syringe for some completely unfathomable reason, before finally finishing the job with a dagger.

Meanwhile, sister dear—who seems to be having a thoroughly enjoyable shower in complete darkness—eventually decides that the blood-curdling screams outside the bathroom might just warrant a quick look. She catches sight of the murderer and instantly faints. The police arrive moments later and arrest somebody, although the audience is never told who it is, and the suspect somehow walks free.

Cut—pun entirely intended—to Neha Chopra (Karisma Kapoor), who is delighted to have been commissioned by Mayor Dabral (Jackie Shroff) to renovate his old bungalow in Nainital. No sooner does she step off the train than the mysterious Shetty, looking like a comic-book version of Arnold Schwarzenegger gone horribly wrong, spots her and mutters, "Beauty with purity."

Neha then meets the decidedly sleazy Mayor Dabral, who settles her into the bungalow before quietly remarking to himself, "Beauty with brains."

Next comes neighbour Raj (Dino Morea), who dramatically swings through her bathroom window to rescue her from electrocution. This, incidentally, is moments after someone has secretly photographed her in the bathroom from camera angles that defy every known law of physics. Raj surveys the situation and mutters, "Beauty with body."

So there we have it. Three principal male characters. Three different descriptions of the heroine. One unanimous conclusion—she's a beauty. Now all we have to do is work out which one of them is the killer.

Neha inevitably falls for the brooding, bad-tempered Raj. One day, however, she is hauled into the police station by D.S.P. Harsh Wardhan (Suniel Shetty) and fellow officer Preeti Rastogi (Preeti Jhangiani), who inform her that Raj is their prime suspect. Unfortunately, despite years of suspicion, they have never managed to gather enough evidence to arrest him.

Neha is no fool. If a court of law has failed to find Raj guilty, why should she suddenly believe otherwise?

Returning home, she promptly discovers the murder weapon, photographs of herself in the bathroom, a syringe and a pair of rubber gloves conveniently lying around Raj's house. Convinced at last that he really is the killer, she flees straight into the waiting arms of D.S.P. Harsh.

Raj, of course, never thinks to ask why the woman he supposedly loves suddenly bolts from the house, nor does he seem remotely curious about the conveniently placed murder weapon and incriminating evidence. Perhaps Neha thoughtfully returned everything before leaving.

Determined to flee Nainital, Neha is first taken by Harsh to visit the traumatised sister of Miss Nainital and her permanently hysterical mother. Rather than catching the first available train out of town, Neha inexplicably decides she'd much rather become the proverbial "bird in danger" herself and help catch the killer.

Cut to an extraordinarily sleazy song sequence in which Mayor Dabral imagines Neha dancing provocatively with half a dozen scantily clad nymphets in what appears to be his own private Kamasutra parlour. Raj slashes photographs of Neha in a jealous rage while the ever-protective Harsh hovers in the background. Which one of them is the killer? More importantly, will we ever discover why?

To reveal anything further would spoil the film's increasingly ludicrous plot, so for those who are either terminally bored or possess distinctly masochistic tendencies and decide to venture out to see this drivel, suffice it to say that matters somehow become even worse.

Eventually we arrive at the killer's den where, through some ingenious and entirely unexplained method, he has managed to preserve all his murdered victims standing bolt upright inside neat little glass display cases. Not a hint of decomposition. Not a stab wound in sight. Nothing. Perhaps poor Miss Nainital simply received a rougher deal than the others.

It is a pity these wonderfully ridiculous waxwork victims weren't introduced much earlier, because they might have transformed the proceedings into something enjoyably camp in the mould of seventies gems like Geeta Mera Naam. Instead, all we get are the occasional birds fluttering around in an obvious attempt to justify the title.

Then comes the inevitable explanation that the murderer is mentally deranged. Fine—but if that's the case, how exactly has he managed to conceal his insanity so successfully for all these years? And what was the actual motive? That his mother happened to be mad and therefore he simply inherited it? Why was he preserving the corpses? And for heaven's sake, what was the syringe actually supposed to do?

This isn't even laughably bad. It's simply painful.

You begin to wonder who dreamt up this idea in the first place, how long it took to write the screenplay, and why any of these actors agreed to appear in it.

Karisma Kapoor has reached a level in the industry that, in my opinion, is perhaps a little overstated. No, she isn't a brilliant actress, and even her better performances rarely leave much of an impression. But having reached that stage in her career, why on earth is she appearing in absolute drivel like this? What possible justification could there be? Hers is the central role, but frankly, who gives a monkey's? The material is utter rubbish and, although she is thankfully spared the usual screaming and hysterics, she still comes across rather poorly.

Jackie Shroff spends the entire film trying to muddy the waters by behaving like the obvious suspect. Suniel Shetty desperately needs a makeover and leaves very little impression, while Dino Morea shows a marked improvement and at least demonstrates some potential.

I simply cannot bring myself to warm to the thoroughly lacklustre and completely ordinary Preeti Jhangiani.

Tinnu Verma's direction is poor throughout. Endless action scenes involving doors flying off their hinges, bodies crashing through windows and assorted slow-motion mayhem quickly become exhausting rather than exciting. The dream sequence is unintentionally hilarious.

For a while he succeeds in making us wonder who the killer might be, only to work so hard at pointing the finger towards one suspect that you immediately know it can't possibly be him. There are precious few thrills, even fewer chills, and proceedings are further weighed down by Ismail Darbar's rather forgettable score.

Quite honestly, the film could have lost ninety minutes and still not felt particularly brisk.

With a title as ridiculous as A Bird in Danger!, perhaps one shouldn't expect very much. Frankly, I was simply hoping for an unintentionally funny disaster.

Sadly, even that proves to be beyond Baaz.