Aakhri Ride is directed by Vijesh Rajan and Yashoda Parthasarathy.
Chandan Roy, Faisal Malik and Aamir Dalvi star in the short film.
The thriller has dropped on YouTube.
Aakhri Ride gives a definitive example of horror that’s convincing as long as it doesn’t crank out an unwarranted social lens. Not all filmmakers can land the pivot. Vijesh Rajan and Yashoda Parthasarathy have penned and helmed a short film that uses a night to uncloak greed, a turn to crime, horror and a throbbing conscience. The results are mixed for the twist arrives more awkwardly than impressively in reorienting the stakes.
Transpiring over a single night, Aakhri Ride invites tropes to skewer them. The framing is that of horror. We anticipate something, someone on the cusp of striking. The filmmakers plant a glimpse of a later scene in the very opening. So, there’s already a tease, an expectation. Aman (Chandan Roy) is a cabbie railed at by his boss, the car owner, to maximise rides. He brushes away the latter’s suspicions of him sleeping in the car itself, which he does. Neither does his family know that he doesn’t have a place in Mumbai. Aman’s life is defined by the road. Bigger trouble ensues when he has to cobble together money for his sister’s dowry. If he can’t, the wedding would get cancelled. There’s high stress Aman has to battle without letting it affect the pace of his pickups. In the midst of it comes a call from a friend and fraud Raju (Faisal Malik in a stellar, sly piece of voice acting). Aman has left the seedy life behind. However, Raju goads, manipulates and provokes him to reconsider. He’s hissing at him to get off the high horse and do what it takes to solve the complication.
The film devotes its bulk to Aman’s dilemma. How can he scramble together the money for his sister’s dowry? He has to come up with it, while dealing with a boss who’s always nagging him to book another ride, make the most of the weekend. Through GPS activated in the car, the boss keeps a constant watch. Aman has no time or space for pause. He can barely catch his breath before he is pinned onto scrabbling for the next ride. Amidst a family crisis, he is shorn of getting a chance to even consider what plan he can chalk.
It’s implied that he once was involved in shady business. The driving gig came as a break, a switch to a respectable life. Now, the temptation to make quick, heftier money crashes again. Can he afford to resist and hold out? The film situates his uncertainty, his helplessness. He’s not willing to accept that he has got his hands all tied up. He promises his sister a solution when she insists being confronted with the question of dignity. As he keeps chatting with Raju who pops a daring idea, the next passenger, a woman, squeaks in. The destination is far, crossing a desolate expanse.
Rajan and Parthasarathy try to meld a stab of jump-scare, humour, absurdity and social pulse. However, the balance is never wholly cohesive. Aamir Dalvi makes a late scenery-chewing entry as a cop, injecting dismissive, jokey energy. He makes the film more spirited than it could have managed.
When the film reveals a sleight of hand, a tender, anxious heart beneath the frights, it doesn’t feel as credible and earned as it would like to believe. The insertion comes off as pasted on in a superficial light, in keeping with lending a social function to horror. The urge to say something topical and pressing doesn’t fold in as smoothly and effectively as intended. There’s a jarring effect that stems from a lack of genuine poignance. The final stretch needed sincerity, a sobering punch. What we get is a compassionate appeal that neatly dovetails into a way out. Aakhri Ride boasts a terrifically immersive performance from Roy, who throws himself into the gamut of anxiety, the creeping desire to go astray. But the film never comes together. That ending high remains confined to an empty thought than a thrilling, satisfying place of reassurance and solidarity.
