Night Out is a tiresome slumber party

Debutant director Rakesh Adiga's Night Out is an example of how to tell a story, that actually needs just a few minutes, for two full hours. Adiga, who hit the silver screen as an actor with the 2009 release Jhossh, utterly fails as a director.

Adiga had claimed that his first film is a crime-cum-psychological thriller. Night Out's tagline reads 'a psychedelic journey'. But the plot and screenplay have absolutely no relevance to the term 'psychedelic' and all it ends up being is a tiresome journey for the audience. Moreover, the Kannada film has no justification for its English title.

Night Out is a tale of confessions of an auto driver's mistakes before his close friend. When the admissions conclude striking a tragedy, the driver's friend is confused. He runs helter-skelter and finally bumps into car, in a seemingly insane manner.

In his interactions with media before the release, Adiga had said that a man becomes insane at the end of the film. So the sole basis for the audience to figure out that the auto driver's friend has become insane is the director's own claim!

The narrative flows extremely slowly with ill-timed songs. Scenes of consumption of liquor are aplenty, while double-meaning dialogues spoil the mood.

However, certain elements catch your attention. Most of the story deals with the late night journey of two friends in an auto rickshaw. Adiga effectively uses non-linear narration with flashback to construct the plot.

The highlight of the movie is an action sequence where the protagonist takes on five rowdies. The fighting has been shown in a different angle.

Arun Alexander hooks you with his cinematography. Same is the case with Sameer Kulkarni's background music. Bharath, Akshay and Shruthi Goradia do justice to their roles.

But alas, despite all this, the audience will be left scratching their heads to understand what Adiga actually wants to convey.

Adiga had said that Night Out is a first-of-its-kind work in the experimental genre. This is indeed true as he heavily experiments on the gullible audience with this film!

Night Out

Kannada (U/A)

Cast: Bharath, Akshay and Shruti Goradia

Director: Rakesh Adiga

Rating: 2