'Speed', another disappointment from Vikram Bhatt

Film: 'Speed'; Cast: Zayed Khan, Urmila Matondkar, Aashish Chaudhary, Aftab Shivdasani, Sanjay Suri, Sophie Chaudhary, Tanushree Datta, Amrita Arora and Raj Zutshi; Director: Sanjay Suri; Rating: *

In the recent past, Vikram Bhatt has churned out flops after flops and his latest offering 'Speed', a mishmash of Hollywood films, is also a disappointment. It is, in fact, the biggest turkey he has made so far.

A few flaws may have been understandable but this movie has too many bloopers - bad script filled with meaningless dialogues, tepid romantic subplot, tacky performances and loose direction. The film succumbs to these errors even before it can pick up the desired speed.

Using London as the backdrop, the film has three tracks. One involves Urmila Matondkar, a science teacher, being kidnapped. The kidnappers blackmail her husband Sanjay Suri, a MI5 (British counter-intelligence) agent, to kill the Indian prime minister played by Suhasini Mulay.

The second track is a love story. Zayed Khan, a spoiled brat, comes all the way to London to convince his girlfriend that he is serious about her and wants to marry her but before he can prove it, he embarks on a rescue mission after he gets a call from Urmila. Zayed and Tanushree don't look like a couple and have nil on screen chemistry.

The third track about a plot to kill the prime minister by her son (Raj Zutshi) with the help of a secret agent-turned-terrorist (Aftab Shivdasani) and his mole at a public function in London is well narrated but fails to give the film any boost.

None of the actors, except for Sanjay Suri who deserves a much better part than the one he got, manage to impress. They all seem to badly need a crash course in acting.

'Speed', mainly inspired by the Hollywood film 'Cellular', is just one more reminder of how hopeless Bhatt's filmmaking has become. It has some praiseworthy action sequences but it can't fix the movie's fundamental flaws. Bhatt's hi-voltage drama looks ends up looking like a comedy film.