Story: The film follows the brutal cat and mouse game between a blind ex-police officer Gia Singh (Sonam Kapoor Ahuja) and a psychopathic serial killer (Purab Kohli), who loves to torture and kill young women.
Review: Gia (Sonam Kapoor), a Scotland police officer loses her sight in an accident. The incident cost him his job and purpose in living. He is told that he was fired as a field agent not because of his disability but because of the negligence that caused the accident. An orphan, his faith in God is eroded by the chain of events in his life. However, Gia is forced to wake up from her miserable slumber. He must muster courage after bumping into a stranger posing as a cab driver one fateful night. Based on reports of various missing women, Gia uses her policing skills and suspects that the driver may be the killer. Can he convince the cops that his instincts can see what their eyes can't? With the help of her guide dog Elsa, she decides to go after her evil nemesis.
Blind is the Hindi remake of the 2011 South Korean crime thriller of the same name. The Korean film has been adapted into several languages, including Tamil. Shot during the pandemic in Scotland, the Hindi installment of Shom Makhiza is perhaps the dullest. It's not as dark as intended, it's just depressing and Tourism Scotland, and the police, will not be happy with this output.
What the film gets right, though, is its decision not to glamorize or romanticize the serial killer or his morbid thoughts. Many well-made true crime documentaries fall into this trap of delving into the criminal's psyche. It's hard to tell if the blind is equipped, uninformed or just consciously chooses not to explore that aspect, but it helps.
On paper, the premise is solid and has all the ingredients needed for a compelling crime thriller. A lone visually impaired character at the center of a heinous crime, living in an isolated sleepy town is good enough to create nerve-racking tension and paranoia. Movies like 'Don't Breathe' (2016) have used this type of scene perfectly. Sadly, Sonam's sluggish OTT debut lacks that bone-chilling nerve energy. Makhiza's lethargic direction lacks urgency or fear, and the film's incompetent lead cast exacerbates the damage.
A deadpan Sonam Kapoor is more stoic, less effective. His mellow, stone-faced approach to his characters and songwriting does little justice to the trauma and misery of his screen. Purab Kohli's attempt to depict a piano playing, scaring the lunatic is more staged, less real. Vinay Pathak and Lillet Dubey are wasted. If anyone deserves praise here, it's Sonam's makeup artist, who understands the assignment, actor Shubham Saraf, who plays Nikhil, a bystander, and Elsa, the guide dog. Apart from these, the rest are just wings.
