Khazana (2014) by Rahul Nath


Director: Rahul Nath
Year: 2014
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Plot:
After being welcomed into a new family, a young bride becomes concerned that her family’s treatment towards her is more than cruel tradition, and once she realizes that they’re trying to disrupt her sanity for their own gain she finally strikes back at everyone that has tormented her.

Review:

This one was a problematic if still an enjoyable indie thriller. Among its main problems is the fact that this one drops itself into its storyline without any context or clue as to what’s going on. While it becomes clear about the tensions between her and the stepmom as well as the struggles with the married lifestyle, having flashbacks to events that haven’t been shown to us as a way of giving that information across don’t make this one any easier to figure out what’s happening.  On top of that, the film’s insistence on stacking the deck against her in terms of setting up the outsider nature of her relationship between these various figures conspiring against her to terminate the pregnancy due to the inconvenience it would cause their lifestyle or the doctor who turns her in because he made advances towards her before acting like it was her idea all along just feel incredibly unrealistic. The idea of doing all this simply to keep their own presence in the community and disregarding her feelings manages to feel so over-the-top that there’s a somewhat disconnect here simply to get to the later revenge.

That is mostly wiped out by the impressive nature of what goes on for the final half. As the majority of this one is built around the needs of ensuring that she’s beaten down to the point that she needs to seek revenge, there’s a decided bent on featuring her getting to the point of having to actually seek it out to begin with. Not only is the family life struggle done quite well, but the physical toll exacted on her as well helps to effectively get her to that mindset. By going through with her torture on the family in the manner shown here, which comes from out of nowhere and gets some dark moments on display with what happens to the people she takes on which is cathartic and exacting. It pays off in fine form when it flashes back to the preparations done to put the plan in motion as the various individuals involved come upon their final fate at the same time, making for the films’ positives.


Overview: ***/5
A solid and enjoyable thriller that tends to go overboard with the setup here to get the required payoff feel satisfactory, this one manages to have quite a lot of positives going on that hold it up over the minor flaws on display. Give it a look if you’re interested in thrillers or interested in this kind of effort while those that don’t have much interest or appreciation for the style should heed caution.

Comments