The only one who lifts the film and makes it worth our while is Shukla, who has got himself a role worthy of his talent after a long time.

On the upside, the Punjabbi-ness is not exaggerated. No giddhas-bhangras. No bijis-baujis. And no rock-garden-Chandigarh or Sukhna-lake-Chandigarh.

Good idea, lousy execution. This is a mess of a movie, which ticks off its horror film checklist, one after the other: a church with a steeple, shadowy priests, spirits who wear splashy red gowns and kiss with a forked tongue, mysterious escort girls, ‘mental’ patients scribbling on walls, guilty killers who hang themselves and deadly islands.

The film has been written zippily by people who know this world. It looks and feels authentic, minus exaggeration. And the actors look as if they belong.

This could have been a slap-up rom com. But the trouble with this good-looking movie is that it is patchily written and performed, and often feels contrived.

If the Bhatts had given Hooda more able leading ladies to riff off, ‘Murder 3’ might have been something to look at. What we get instead is two of the most impact-less female lead parts I’ve seen in a while, packaged in an overlong series of ill-written, ill-acted sequences.

The plot that takes two interminable hours to unfold features aimless ‘bhais’ doing ‘filmi bhaigiri’ (‘tu mera right hand kaise banega, ja pehle usko udaa kar aa’), smarmy would-be employers preying upon innocent young girls, and a lead pair who think eating ‘anda bhurji’ in rundown Irani cafes is the height of excitement.

This film had the potential, but it needed both sharper direction and dancing, to maximize it.

I liked some of ‘Listen Amaya’, I really wanted to like it more.

‘David’ speaks of a new kind of Bollywood which doesn’t want to be slavish to stars or formulae. But it also speaks of a filmmaking which isn’t quite as accomplished as it would like to be, or should be. It points to the presence of craft, sure, but craft which should be paying much more attention to the crucial elements of centrality and coherence. ‘David’ coasts on a few startlingly sharp scenes and zippy musical interludes, but doesn’t add up to the sum of its zanier parts.