The biggest achievement of Rudraksh is that the film defines the term wannabe neatly. The director is a Spielberg wannabe, since it’s mostly about special effects. The film is a The Matrix wannabe, since it weaves in religion with science fiction. Ishaa Koppikar is a Bipasha Basu wannabe, since she joins in her trademark heavy-duty breathing. In fact, Basu pants so much in one shot, it leaves you wondering whether her heaving bust is animated or real.
Bhuria (Shetty) is working on an excavation site in Sri Lanka, where he stumbles upon Ravana’s Rudraksh, which mutates him into a demon. Varun (Dutt) is a spiritual healer who thinks doing puja is cool and mumbles mumbo-jumbo about the Divine Internet (God) with the same ease he bashes up people. Bipasha Basu is a scientist aspiring for Nobel Prize. And I want to be Madonna. Ishaa Koppikar is an item number. The scientist is studying Varun, who's endowed with supernatural powers, when she asks him to heal a madman. She then makes a toy mouse listen to the recorded voice of the madman, upon which the toy undergoes DNA mutation, after which it looks at another scientist, who soon starts climbing walls and flying!
The most visible SFX (70 minutes, we are told) can be seen in the eyes of the cast, literally. Every time someone undergoes mutation, the colour of eyes changes to red, yellow, green, grey and blue! Some other SFX take you back to the days of the good-old Ramayana, Ramanand Sagar style. Like when two Shettys hurl balls of fire at Dutt from opposite directions, he ducks, and the balls hit each other and explode. In the next shot, he jumps up. The rest of the film is as predictable about the fight between the bad and the evil. Except, there are no winners here.
