Agadam (2014)

Oh, the irony that is the interval! You only have to feel sorry for Mohamad Issack. He has made a film that has been certified by the Guinness World Records as the longest uncut film but his very achievement is tarnished by the fact that the film is cut (read stopped) midway by the theatre operator for the interval. In fact, indirectly, this very act is a statement on the significance of Issack's efforts. Watching the film, we realize that it isn't ambition or the subject of his movie that has necessitated this attempt but the need for such a gimmick to attract an unsuspecting viewer. This is novelty for novelty's sake, nothing more. The film's plot heavily draws on Karthik Subburaj's trendsetting Pizza. If the latter film had an individual trapped in a lonely mansion that has a ghost, here it is four characters who are scared to death by a ghost in a house. The difference is that while Vijay Sethupathi was the protagonist there, here, the victims are all corrupt men, who distribute expired medicines and murder those who try to expose them. There is also a twist towards the end, as in the earlier film. And, like Pizza, this one too has been shot on a shoe-string budget. But the comparisons end there. While Karthik Subburaj's film is a dazzling example of what a director with a command over his craft can do with a minimal budget, Agadam is a cautionary tale that proves that while digital has made it possible for anyone to make a film, not everyone should make one. This is an unnecessarily over-long film with a sloppy script, amateur performances, shoddy camerawork, template music and unintentionally funny sequences, with not a single redeeming feature (no, the longest shot doesn't count). The only horror here is not the one the characters experience but what we, the audience, undergo.