After watching ‘RUM’ trailer, there was some history behind stones, spirits, revenge, drama and some geeky technology stuff. In all the 2 minute trailer made some bright promises ahead, but the end product (the movie as a whole) has little entertainment in the name of horror and drama. Hrishikesh who had a minor role in VIP plays the lead along with Sanchitha, Narain, Vivek and a bunch of other actors in ‘’RUM which also has Anirudh’s first time musical for a horror drama.
Rum’s storyline is a easy guess, few minutes into the movie we are put into a predictable format of a horror movie. A bunch of hi-tech thieves after a heist, break away into a haunted house and come in contact with supernatural elements, and as is the rule of ghost stories the house has a history associated with it and why it became haunted forms the crux. Do they get out of this jinx? What happened there, that’s ‘RUM’ in a nutshell.
Hrishikesh after playing the innocent lad in ‘VIP’ looks promising as Shiva, he is the brain of the heist gang, with Vivek a chemist, Sanchitha as Shiva’s love interest and two other friends the heist gang go for the big loot until they take hide-out in a sinister place. How does Narain fit in the story? Well, that’s one of the surprise elements of the film, best not to spoil the suspense.
‘RUM’ comes with a Horror movie checklist; Haunted place..check, Ensemble cast..check, Emotional revenge & flashback..check, comedy...check, the list could just keep going on for a horror comedy movie and ‘RUM’ ticks all the boxes. That said, there is a surprise drama element from director Sai Bharath, who takes a step ahead in the horror genre by adding a different angle to revenge. The CGI for RUM is not too bad and has some good takeaways, sadly it was never utilized to its fullest extent with stereotypical situations and scenes.
For any comical horror movies, it’s either the comedian or the comical scenes that make it up, here however it’s neither. Vivek’s comical timing looks rather too desperate to bring about a laugh and even though he does succeed at times, they are cloned with double meaning jokes like Urine, Balls and so on. The act goes on to an extent till we wonder if those dialogues were necessary at all. Another talent in the lot is Narain, who looks to have a good role, but there is not much room for the actor to prove his prowess with limited space in the script. Sanchitha is eye candy for her role, adds a fresh outlook pairing up with Hrishikesh for the first time. Mia George looks stunning and makes amends for a ghostly outlook in the second half with occasional scares.
What works for RUM is its CGI, the script for its unusual touch to a Horror movie, camera work. What doesn’t is largely the scary elements, screenplay, poor song placements and average editing. One moment we are taken into the house (Which is not haunted for the cast) and for no real scary moments the cast is made to do "oohs & aahs", for what? Then cut to the lead pair off to a song, why? Call it a just about fair job in editing or average screenplay, these are some letdowns in ‘RUM’ that trouble its runtime to a great extent. Anirudh’s BGM and songs too do not make a great impression along with the visuals and they are just about. BGM for the climax sequences settle things well, but the damage has been done already.
Verdict: If you are looking for a hardcore scary movie, ‘RUM’ is probably not the best idea. But if you are a horror movie fan,’ RUM’ might not completely disappoint you for it has an interesting revenge and a drama twist along with some occasional humor wits from Vivek.
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