A silly story of hit and miss

Sharp Shooter (Kannada)

Director: Ghousepeer

Cast: Diganth, Sangeetha Chouhan, Chikkanna, Achyuth Kumar, Sudharani, Lakshmi, Bhajrangi Loki

The tagline of Ghousepeer’s Sharp Shooter is Nambi Please (please believe). Thankfully, at least the filmmaker already knows that it might be a little difficult to believe the story he chooses to narrate.

Nandini (Sangeetha Chauhan), a lawyer, has ‘nightophobia’ (I assume it is nyctobhobia), which is an acute fear of darkness. This condition is explained by the fact that as a child, she witnessed the murder of her parents at the hands of a gangster. She falls in love with Jedara Kanappa a.k.a J.K. (Diganth) and wants to marry him. She even tells him that ever since she met him, she has been able to sleep well at nights and is a little less afraid of the dark.

On hearing about her condition, J.K., though in love with her, is reluctant to marry her because he suffers from night blindness and is worried that he can barely help her. However, on the advice of a friend and a promise to his mother, he hides this fact from her. What ensues is a comedy of errors, except that it is not as funny as the filmmaker imagines it to be.

Diganth’s 25th film, Sharp Shooter falls into the category of the leave-your-brains-outside-and-watch films but the filmmaker really tests one’s ability to do that. J.K. is mistaken for a sharp shooter who kills the don that killed Nandini’s parents. The rest of the plot is about how he gets out of this murder conspiracy.

There have been many films like Sharp Shooter which thrive on the spiralling absurdity of a situation. But Ghousepeer’s film is so bizarre and silly that it forgets that it has to evoke laughter too. According to the filmmaker’s definition of night blindness, J.K. goes blind as soon as the sun sets.

He holds the menu card upside down at dinner and confuses Nandini’s guardian (Sudharani) for Nandini- all of this sitting inside a brightly lit restaurant.

Further, the dialogues, throughout the film are mostly riddles, replete with the silliest one-liners.

At least, if the actors showcased some good comic timing, it would have been easy to sit through the film. But Diganth, Sangeetha and Chikkana’s average performances leave the audience rather bored. The filmmaker employs a narrator who often informs the audience (warns, actually) about what is to follow. This narrator adopts a lackadaisical approach to the plot shunning notions of suspense throughout. We are told there will be a fight, but first we must sit through an item number. This was in fact the only saving grace in Sharp Shooter- the fact that the filmmakers too don’t seem to take themselves seriously.