India's IT boom has undoubtedly helped turn the nation into one of the world's leading economies. Unfortunately, its criminal element has been equally adept at taking advantage of the available technology, as writer/director Harry Beweja explores in his latest thriller - Teesri Aankh. And who better than macho man Sunny Deol to play a gutsy Indian detective who travels to England to smash an international pornography racket? But even his brawn isn't enough to save this film from being titillating rather than scrutinizing.
When Arjun Singh's (Deol) girlfriend Sapna (Neha Dhupia) goes missing he links her disappearance to a criminal gang who secretly film young women, using everything from mobile phones to web cams to blackmail them into making pornographic films. A tip leads him strangely to Pinewood Studios where he meets Amu (Amisha Patel), a mute production assistant who is eyewitness to a murder thought to be committed by the same gang. Together they run from, and towards, the gang leader Sudama Pandey (Mukesh Rishi), a dirty villain who hangs out in London's lap dancing bars. Could this film get anymore seedier? Sadly yes.
"NOTHING NEW OR INTERESTING"
Baweja's decision to skim over India's rising Peeping Tom phenomenon and its sinister link to the pornography industry, and instead linger over the description of how young women fall fowl of voyeurs, offers nothing new or interesting to the viewer. It only serves to provide cheap thrills for Indian audiences who are restricted by their censors in the type of sexually provocative material they can view. Had the screenplay exhibited more depth and maturity, and of course omitted the unnecessary songs, it would have perhaps been something worth watching.