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Saturday, April 20, 2024
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HOLLYWOOD DEVIL
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: ***
When Manoj Night Shyamalan entered Hollywood, he became a master of the quiet,
suspense thrillers. But of late he has proved to be a disappointment. With
"Devil", however, which he has produced based on his own story, he
seems to be regaining form.
Yet detractors of Shyamalan would point out that it is his lack of confidence
that made him not direct the film himself.
"Devil" tells a simple moral tale. Five unconnected strangers are
trapped in an elevator in Philadelphia. One of them is the Devil. The light
inside the lift fluctuates and whenever it goes out completely, even for a few
seconds, someone in the lift is killed.
A disbelieving police officer with a sad past, who is sitting in the control
room where he can see live video of the lift, tries desperately to prevent the
killings from happening. However, it turns out that the trapped strangers are
not so innocent after all.
The devil in the film is a metaphor for the horrors inside us. None of us are
absolutely pure, having done something or the other that was not right, but we
hide this devil inside us and lie to ourselves about our purity.
But the only way to get rid of it, as the film suggests, is in seeking and
granting forgiveness and redemption. Ironically, as the film closes, you realize
the devil is not pure ‘evil` after all. That he has to run away from a pure,
repentant heart.
The hallmark of a good suspense film is the use of sound. Right from the
beginning when the five strangers are ticked using an aural leitmotif, the sound
design works with precision. It`s neither too shrill, nor too gentle.
The actors, picked mostly from TV, do a decent job, but none of them is
exceptional.
From the looks of it, this 80-minute film is a relatively low budget affair put
together quickly and a little more attention to detail, and logic would have
made it much more worthwhile.
Despite this, unlike other horror films that fail even in their one intention to
chill, "Devil" does manage to pack a decent thrilling punch.
