Producer: Mahendra Katariya Director: Himanshu Bhatt Cast: Jackie Shroff, Sameer Aftab, Sushant Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Akhilendra Mishra, Daya Shanker Pandey, Firoze Iran

MUMBAI: The electronic media theme seems to be in. Musaa: The Most Wanted, earlier titled Channel Ex, is one such film.

The channel, owned by Jackie Shroff, specialises in sting operations on the underworld.

The dons are upset with the channel and its owner who is now threatened by the underworld. During one such sting operation, a lady staffer of the channel is killed by the underworld don Baba Khan’s men. However, the tape she has shot contains some explosive footage on the don and chase for recovery begins. In the good old fashioned style, Shroff’s family members are kidnapped by the don. Finally, good triumphs over evil.

The problem with Musaa is it is a thriller which never thrills and characters as well as the events on the screen look make-believe. While the film has no entertainment quotient, the suspense it tries to create also falls flat. The hero, Sameer Aftab, shown to be an innocent victim of one such sting operation and his revenge drama look childish.

Jackie Shroff is okay while Aarti Puri as his wife makes her mark. Sameer Afatb’s character is ill-defined and hence fails to impress. Debutante Lijna Zariya can’t act. Sushant Singh and Yashpal Sharma are loud. Rest fill the bill.

Writer-director Himanshu Bhatt fails as the writer and hence fails as a director too. Dialogue is ordinary. The film has three music directors on its roaster but not a single hummable number. Technically the film is shoddy.

Musaa is a non-starter, a loser before it takes off.

Nakshatra: A script of convenience

Producer: Ravindra Singh Director: Mohan Savalkar Cast: Shubh, Sabina Sheema, Milind Soman, Anupam Kher, Anant Jog, Gajendra Chauhan

In a week of total duds, ‘no public-no show’ week, Nakshatra leads the pack.

If the film’s title is corny, the plot takes the cake. The title, it would seem, somehow attempts to relate the film to the moon and the 27 Nakshatras!! But, who cares! If you can’t tell a simple story simply, last thing you do is to complicate it further. This week’s theme seems to be ‘Suspense Thriller Sans Suspense’ and this film is exactly that; because its suspense you can guess rightly all along.

Subh Mukherjee is an aspiring script writer who, when an opportunity to write a film script comes his way, grabs it so he could prove himself to his girlfriend, Jiya. His script is accepted and he and Jiya are engaged to be married. Enter the ‘twists and turns’ department and Subh is arrested for a robbery. Anupam Kher is a well-wisher trying to help and Milind Soman plays the cop.

The problem with the film is that it is totally a script of convenience, no logic no reasons!

Director Mohan Savalkar can do little to salvage the film. Performances are uniformly listless.

Nakshatra is a lost case from the day it was launched.