Cookie Movie Review : Yet another predictable horror flick
Critic's Rating:
1.0/5
STORY: Born to psychiatrist parents -- Dr Rajeev Kapoor (Rajeev Gupta) and Dr Aparna Kapoor (Reena Wadhwa) -- Cookie (Vibhoutee Sharma) always felt that her folks showered all their love and attention on her younger sister. Hot-headed by nature, she storms out of her family home one fateful night. What ensues is a bizarre chain of paranormal activities, coupled with senseless drama.
REVIEW: Young, rich, rebellious, beautiful and bold... Cookie is your typical millennial who wants nothing but attention from her uber busy parents (and hefty pocket money, too). But, their relationship with her 'baby sister' has always been a trigger for the troubled teenager, who is filled with vengeful tendencies and has taken 'sibling rivalry' to a whole new level.
The film starts with a bizarre (and badly executed) emotional outburst, followed by a few more in quick successions. But, before one could wrap their head around what's going on in the film -- whether Cookie has mental health issues or she just has an attention-seeking persona, is something that remains a mystery throughout -- an eccentric police officer walks in and introduces the worried parents to the concept of 'faith in afterlife' and all other equally outlandish theories that make no sense whatsoever.
Debutante Vibhoutee Sharma has hammed in the film and how! Her work, both as a twisted person and a ghost seeking revenge, is hard to sit through; laughable background score and visual effects make things only worse. Rajeev Gupta, as the detached father, has maintained one expression in the entire film -- that of not emoting at all. Reena Wadhwa, as the melodramatic mother and the 'chosen one' for her daughter's bitter soul, is half-decent in the first half but loses grip over herself in the second; her possessed act is unbelievable and not in a nice way.
The script is directionless from the word go and certain elements defy logic even by Bollywood horror standards. For instance, the father does not shed a single drop of tear upon hearing the devasting news of his daughter's untimely death, and he choses to stay at home while the boyfriend collects her body from the mortuary.
The director tries to fit in various human emotions in one half-baked story -- of child neglect, sibling rivalry, revenge and what not -- but it's execution is plain shoddy, which the Indian horror movies are anyway notorious for. Sure, there was an attempt to do something 'hatke' with 'Cookie' but the diegesis is an amalgamation of all other movies in this genre; predictable till the credits roll.
Yes, this cookie has crumbled and we must run to safety!