The Mystery of Moksha Island slides as it goes forward

- ADVERTISEMENT -

When we slide down in the children’s park, there is exhilaration when the high at the top results in exultation as we land on terra firma, but over here, the descent is literally that—a downward graph. The Mystery of Moksha Island (Telugu, dubbed in Hindi) seems like a title straight out of Enid Blyton and the likes, but the happenings and conclusions here are violent and even brutal and too illogical unlike those well-knit simple children’s adventure and mystery thrillers!

When it begins, the story is simple: a rich scientist, Vishwak Sen (Ashutosh Rana), who is world-famous and owns an island (!) where he continues his research dies mysteriously in an air-crash. A host of extended family members, including his estranged wife and sundry other characters that also comprise a professional sniper, Venkat (Nandhu Vijay Krishna) are invited to this place and are informed that those who remain on the island for the next week will receive an equal share of money from among his Rs. 2400 billion assets (how on earth and Moksha Island did a scientist make that kind of moolah?),

The coterie includes Jhansi (Priya Anand), Aditi (Sonia Agarwal), Meena (Sudha), Isha (Tejaswi Madivada) and others.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

A few leave the place, others greedily stay on, and there is a woman who calls herself the late scientist’s mistress Maya (Akshara Gowda), who takes charge. From here on, weird and gruesome things begin to happen and soon, the ‘relatives’ begin to fight with each other and among themselves. As the number of survivors reduce due to strange deaths and disappearances, the twist comes. And yet as a viewer experience, the show plummets as the episodes go on.

Erratic narration, languid stretching of sequences as well as jerky and jumping recounting along with needless erotica—and even completely unnecessary—the ubiquitous gay angle all make for very tiresome viewing that takes away all the fun of a nice suspense drama.

Nandu Vijay Krishna, Priya Anand and Akshara Gowda give sincere turns. There is a lot of hamming and overacting among the rest of the cast, and the script obviously leaves a lot to be desired. The director tries to create the right ambience, but the half-hearted absurd material he gets makes everything drab. Ashutosh Rana is criminally wasted.

All that is left then is the awesome lensing (Naveen Yadav) of the fabulous location. But while some of the guests find that their family members have gone missing, I am alarmed that it is actually the script that vanishes into nowhere.

Rating: *1/2

Disney+Hotstar & Jio Hotstar present 14 Reels Entertainment’s The Mystery of Moksha Island Produced by: Ram Achanta & Gopi Achanta Directed by: Anish Yohan Kuruvilla  Written by: Prashant Varma and Sanjay Roy Music: Shakthikanth Karthik  Starring: Nandhu Vijay Krishna, Priya Anand, Ashutosh Rana, Akshara Gowda, Sonia Agarwal, Sudha, Roshan Kanakala, Tejaswi Madivada, Bindu Chandramouli, Pavani Reddy, Keshav Deepak, Raj Tirandasu, Ajay Kumar Kathurvar, Bhanu Chander & others

Related posts:

Happy Birthday Dev Anand! The evergreen hero is still fondly remembered ten years after his passing Three Indian-Americans receive Lifetime Achievement Awards from President Biden for Volunteer Service Candidate for N.Y. State Senate announces run for Democratic Party primary Gowda campaign for NY Senate announces endorsement