The story (if you want to call it that) revolves around Bobo (Emran Hashmi) the magician, who has a regular urban life, with a troubled past of a dead sister that haunts him. When his childhood psychiatrist puts him on the couch & hypnotises him to take him to the past, we see his flashback of the daayan that killed his family. Back in the present, the inevitable return of the daayan keeps haunting him, which lead to a series of non-events, new characters and brand new daayans, till finally he kills them all & saves the day.
Produced/Written by Vishal Bhardwaj would have stood for a highly engaging story telling with a potentially dark and twisted side. Produced by Ekta Kapoor would have also meant a certain plot and story telling, which while not profound, would be deeply entertaining. However, clearly when the two master story-tellers come together, they create a witch-potion that is not only ineffective at scaring you, but deeply insulting to the audience that is lost between the Christian notion of the devil and hell (aka omen's 666 symbol) and the Desi notion of Daayan and her choti, Pishaach and his gardan.
It's bad enough that you have to suffer Emran Hashmi and his lover-boy marriage proposal of "I'm a tiger in bed", but then you have to sit through music and dance sequence of the likes of "tottey udh gaye, with everyone (including Bobo's psychiatrist who has just convinced Bobo that he is f***ed up in the head), and see the plot unfolding to the great climax scene of a devils party underground (no, really... It's literally underground - no metaphors in this movie - I think it was the minus 2 level, and yes you can press the lift button to get there), and it’s literally a party (one of the pishaach’s is actually seen with a glass of wine!), where all the daayan's and pishaaches are giving a human sacrifice of a child to please the devil. You could almost see the Ramsay Brothers having the last laugh at the audience, saying "and you thought our horror was crass" (Score 1 for Ramsays)
To give the movie it's fair due, it did have potential, not in the story line, or the dialogues, or the acting, or music or the directing, but in the way it started and built up in the first half till the interval. Bobo's childhood memory story of the Daayan who comes into his life and kills his family is quite engaging and in moments scary, thanks to Konkona's acting (by the way, what the hell was she doing in this movie), the child actor who plays Bobo delivers a convincing performance of a wanna-be magician child who believes in the fantasy world of witches and hell, a world that eventually comes true and destroys his life. The movie also has a sense of humour in the first half, like the name of the Daayan being "Diaana", where again you look for promise and potential in a style of narration that could be going somewhere.
But unfortunately, the interval ends and the movie continues to its fast decline into a sea of nothing happening except the Daayan kind-of coming back and kind-of trying to create havoc. Well mostly the Daayan doesnt have to even try hard. Bobo is obssessed and psychotic enough to keep running around every woman with long hair in knots, trying to cut it off (the hair) that keeps the commotion moving along (kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi... I mean kyonki Daayan Ki shakti uski choti mein hoti hai!)
Ofcourse, the good thing for the characters in the movie is that this was happening in India, where we have a text book for everything, so "all you wanted to know about witches and the devil, but didnt know whom to ask" is there in a book called "Kaal, Dayan Aur Whatever". and thankfully, the daayans in the movie play by the book. So, you know how to spot them, know them, and beat them.
In fact, I think at the end of the movie, they did say its going to be available on book store, both iOS and Android. Because, you see, the movie was a modern movie (suck your face Ramsay brothers, Score 1 for Daayan) - no haveli's, and mahals, and green lands and forests. This is a bombay urban setting, in a bombay high rise building (read 4 floors in H.I.G colony in vile parle), with modern day young characters, who are 'living in', use mac books and iPhone, bring take-away coffee home, are planning to adopt a child even before getting married, and talk about watching porn.
Then ofcourse, there are these randomly created extra characters in the movie,like Bobo's childhood psychiatrist who spent 20 years convincing Bobo that he is a stark-raving lunatic believing in daayans et al, and then in one brief moment of seeing a page in the text-book, calls Bobo to say "Bobo you were right and I was wrong", just before meeting his inevitable doom at the hands of... You guessed it... Daayan. But, not before he says, what I think, is one of the most priceless dialogues in the movie "Bobo,Yeh kitaab padhke mujhe samajh aa gaya hai ki tumhaari jaan khatre mein hain". No shit Sherlock. He's been saying it for the last 20 years, reading the same text book (apparently still in the syllabus, not even a new edition).
Oh ya, and then there is Kalki Koechlin too, as Lisa Dutt, who seems to play the role of the fall guy for all Daayans. Much like Sanjay Dutt, I suppose.
I think you finally give up on the movie (still too late I think) when Bobo before the climax scene reads in the text book that there are 2 types of pishaach - good ones and bad ones! Kill me now is the thought that crosses your mind then. But then it finally dawns on you what the movie was all about. It’s not in what’s written in the text book, but in what Bobo does NOT read in the text book... Pishaach (or male daayans it seems) can be good or bad, but (women) daayans it seems are only bad. Thats when you get it, that this movie is a sequel to "Pyaar Ka Punchnaama". And then they also have the sense of humour to give the disclaimer in the beginning of the movie that the intention of this movie is not to show women in poor light!
So, all in all a neat little movie. Like I said, Ek Thi Daayan, Ek Aur Thi Daayan, Donon Mar Gaye, Khatam Kahani, pretty much sums it up.
