Most film actors turn producers under two circumstances. Either their films are doing very well and they would rather keep the moolah in the family or they are not being offered good roles and whenever they come across one they want to do, they choose to produce it since no one else will cast them.
In the case of I See You, the latter seems to have been the case. Produced by Mehr Rampal, the film is so Arjun centric, even his biggest fan would feel claustrophobic while watching it.
That’s not as much a problem though as is the storyline. You don’t have to be a skeptic to dismiss the premise that the spirit of a girl in coma flits around like a ghost, unheard and unseen by all. Till she meets the chosen one, Arjun Rampal, who can not only see and hear her, but can feel her too; this is rather convenient because at some point he falls in love with her.
Vipasha Agarwal is the girl who is neither in this world nor in the other. An accident has left her in a coma but her spirit roams the world at will, or London at any rate. When she finally convinces Arjun that she is a spirit and he is not being made a bakra of by his colleague Chunky Panday, he sets out to save her. From what? Here unfolds a half baked story of organ transplant etc etc.
She says that in her state of unbeing, she can’t pick up things but easily takes his hand and guides him on the dance floor when the script feels the need for a song. When she sees that her comatose body is about to be killed, she doesn’t get Arjun to rush and stop it, she cries in his arms instead. Spirits can be so abjectly human as to cry?
Boman Irani makes an appearance as a psychiatrist but is used more as a prop in the Chunky-Sonali Kulkarni tale of a mismatched marriage, disjointed in the context of the film. Even the side track of the Hindi speaking British police inspector wears thin in a while.
A fantasy like this would have worked if it was kept light and the acting was believable if not excellent. Unfortunately, neither of the two happens here. Instead of staying at the fantasy level it becomes all mushy and human and serious and neither of the lead actors can hold an expression. While Arjun has still to live up to his Moksh expectations, Vipasha has a long way to go to be called an actress.
Chunky Panday and Boman Irani do cull a few moments of mirth but not enough to keep one interested in the proceedings. They are helped largely by some dry humour in the dialogue by Niranjan Iyengar.
Eventually, what keeps you in your seat is the camerawork by Ashok Mehta who makes London look fetchingly urban. Pity his former assistant Vivek Agarwal didn’t learn the art of keeping the audience engaged from him.
DNA India