Film review, Ragini MMS 2: Right mix of sex, sleaze, fear and cheap thrills

Cast: Sunny Leone, Parvin Dabas, Karan Mehra, Sandhya Mridul, Saahil Prem, Divya Dutta
Direction: Bhushan Patel
Rating: ***

Ragini MMS 2 is a thoroughly enjoyable, full paisa-vasool film in the best tradition of B-grade horror flicks from the haunted house of the Ramsay Brothers. It has the right mix of sex, sleaze, fear and cheap thrills. It titilates, has dialogues spiked with funny double entendres and shows enough self-gratification to warrant the Adults Only certification.

Right at the beginning of the film, director Rocks (Pravin Dabas) announces that he’s making a “horrex” film, horror plus sex. That’s his film. This film, Ragini MMS-2, by director Bhushan Patel and co-produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainmentand, with writers Suhani Kanvar and Praveen Bookwala, is more than that. It is a “ho-ho-horrex” flick. And is served Sunny side up, for your pleasure only.

The story is simple. Failed film director announces a new project starring a porn star, Sunny Leone (played by Sunny Leone, of course), in the lead role and an ensemble of TV actors. The film, based on the story of Ragini whose MMS went viral three years ago, is to be shot in the same haunted house, Patwardhan Villa, where Ragini’s MMS was shot. Ragini, since who has since been the inmate of Room No. 26 of a mental institute, either scratches the walls of her room, or sits on her bed rocking and mumbling to herself.

Rocks, Sunny, Rocks’ film writer Satya Kumar (Sahil Prem), a failed novelist who takes all this chudail business seriously, and the film’s two other actors, Monali (Sandhya Mridul), a sidey actress in search of the casting couch, and Maddy (Karan Mehra), a horny TV hero, land up in the house despite the warning put up by the ASI about staying away from the area after sunset and before sunrise. As the shooting of Rocks’ film begins, we are in the company of interesting and believable characters. And while we while we laugh at and with them, we also see a shadow lurking behind, or the sudden, quiet appearance of a child. We are privy to much more than them, and that's part of the thrill. The story, as it unfolds, is predictable. A romance, some possibility of sex, extras dying brutal deaths, and the chudail gaining power and taking posession of the most precious entity. Till, Dr Meera Dutta (Divya Dutta), a psychiatrist, arrives on the scene and the real story of the Marathi-mumbling tadapti aatma begins to unravel.

I haven’t enjoyed getting scared for years like I did today.

Ragini MMS 2 is a very clever collaboration between people who were obviously enjoying the tasks assigned to them. Director Patel has very cleverly mounted on screen a script which is packed with jokes, ghatiaya dialogue, dirty talk and even a female orgasm.

Ragini MMS 2 has the standard plot of film within a film. But it’s been used to great effect and impact here. Has just the right amount of mambo-jambo to carry the conceit of horror films forward.

The direction is all controlled, not allowing the bhoot business to go out of control, as it usually does, beginning with the soundtrack. The film, in fact, has a fabulous song to which Sunny Leone sways seductively and even flashes.

Sunny Leone has never been used more effectively and sensibly than she has been used here. And when I say used, I mean in the proper exploitative way as a hot actress is used in a B-Grade flick. She gets to wear all the sexy lingerie you wanted to see her in, and thrusts her stuff repeatedly. Luckily she’s supported by the very able team of actors, Sandhya Mridul and Karan Mehra, without whom the film would have been a big bore. They make us laugh before the director says bhau!