You know, how sometimes you walk into a movie, but carry a general dislike for one of the actors and are wary of having to watch him/her for the next couple hours. For the first time after a long-long time, I was wary while entering the theatre. Wary not of the actor, not so-much of the director, or the music director either. It was the anticipated giddying camera work that was making me anxious. Who was going to control him given the suspense-thriller genre? And I was not disappointed. Amit Roy does the trick again - of working really hard on what he thinks is cool. The problem is it does not look good at all. The background score too seems like there is a murder-a-minute waiting to happen.

Now, instead of plagiarizing myself, I am going to have you read my complaints, which are the same for this movie, here.

The whole team takes a good share of the blame, because ultimately the director calls the shots and directs the camerawork. Also, what the audience feels has a lot to do with the way the actors are shot. On the other hand, maybe, just maybe if the performances are strong enough they can rise above the other drawbacks. But, none of that happens.

The entire cast does a reasonably mediocre job. Each one of them starts with one expression that suits their character and holds on to it for the rest of the movie. As I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to judge the performances. The extra-dull dialogues didn’t help either. The movie was called Darling because Geeta (Esha Deol) wanted to call Aaditya (Fardeen Khan) “Darling” sarcastically every ten mintues. Or may be it was the other way round. The script was far from satisfactory too. If the script does not move forward, how can the actors be expected to change their expressions, you see.

Also, I can’t remember another movie in which songs seemed more forced in. Even the item numbers at the beginning and the end seemed to be there to keep people happy. Like a promise to be kept with Nisha Kothari. Or like Isha Koppikar’s excessively-clad character needed some breathing space, so “here do an item number, and throw that character-defining sari away”. Oh and the crooning, “oooo-oooo-tadap-tadap” sounded so familiar, just can’t remember which other movie had a similar tune…it’s at the tip of my tongue… Yeah-yeah, I am good at subtle sarcasm.

So, a suspense thriller which makes you laugh instead of making you clench your nails into the seat. A camera that does all the moving on behalf of the plot. I am not left with many insults to fling at the whole team.

- Meetu, a part of the audience