JINN (2014) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

jinn (2014) movie

Genre              |   Horror Thriller

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   93 minutes

Released         |   4 April 2014 (US)

cast

Dominic Rains ... Shawn Walker / Jehangir Amin / Doppelganger Jinn
Ray Park ... Gabriel
William Atherton ... Father Westhoff
Faran Tahir ... Ali Amin
Serinda Swan ... Jasmine Walker
​Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad ... Zaheer Amin / Jinn Speaking English
Dennis North ... Owen Walker
​Milica Govich ... Milla Walker

director

​Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad ​

writer

Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Robert Mehnert

music

​​Noah Sorota

film editor

Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad
Justin Hynous

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​​​​​​​552,698

Australia                 $​​​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​202,348

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movie minutiae

Ray Park is the actor who played Darth Maul in STAR WARS: EPISODE ONE - THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999), and also played Toad in Bryan Singer;s X-MEN (2000) movie.

​A car known as the Firebreather was created for the film. The car was unveiled to the public at the Autorama in Detroit on February 26, 2010. Designed by Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad, the Firebreather is based on the fifth generation Chevrolet Camaro made to resemble the second generation Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.

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related movies

WISHMASTER (1997)

JINN (2014) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

JINN (2014) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Shawn, an automotive designer, enjoys an idyllic life with his new wife Jasmine until it is interrupted by a cryptic message. The message warns of imminent danger and a curse that has afflicted his family for generations.

Having lost his parents as a child, Shawn doesn't believe this unsettling revelation of his past, until strange things start to happen. Unable to explain the threats and fearing for his life, Shawn turns to Gabriel and Father Westhoff, a mysterious duo claiming to have answers. With their help, and the aid of Ali, a shackled mental patient, Shawn discovers that there is far more to this world than he ever imagined.

These revelations set Shawn on a collision course with the unknown, and he alone must find the strength protect his family and confront the ancient evil that is hunting them. 

JINN (2014) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 13 April 2014

​​Pop Movee Rating

JINN, the long-gestating supernatural thriller from director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad, is stuffed full of interesting images and ideas, but the story never coalesces into a coherent movie and feels more like a series of vignettes stitched together to make up the film’s slender 80 minute running time (excluding the end credits).

Director Ahmad demonstrates enough film-making skill to keep the movie heading toward a its denouement, but it’s had to stop the nagging feeling that that the film’s edit left a lot of content out that would have improved its plot and over-arching narrative. The finished product opts for a fair amount of style over substance, which – sadly – muddies the water on what could have made JINN unique: a supernatural thriller that attempts to demonstrate man’s faith is always stronger than his religion no matter which Church he prays in.

JINN kicks-off with a prologue in 1901 India and features an Exorcist-like clash between the film’s titular supernatural entity and a distant relative of Shawn (Dominic Rains), the modern-day hero of the story.

Events move forward in time to modern day America in Ann Arbor, a small city near Detroit, Michigan. Shawn and his wife Jasmine (Serinda Swan) are an average couple looking to start a family, but their world is changed for the worse when a package arrives with a videotape. Before they can watch the tape, Jasmine tells Shawn that she is unable to have children. He reacts badly to the news and heads to his office to watch the tape on an old VHS player. He watches the tape and learns from his now dead father that he is part of a long line in his family who have to battle Evil.

Shawn returns home to find Jasmine missing and his apartment looking like it has been ransacked. Jasmine eventually arrives home and Shawn shares his story with her. He convinces her to go with him to meet Father Westhoff (William Atherton), a Priest his father told him to go to for safety in the video.

Arriving at the Westhoff’s Church, Shawn and Jasmine also meet Gabriel (Ray Park) - a man who has a secret connection to the Shawn’s family. Westhoff provides Shawn with information that he claims will help “protect” him, but Jasmine dismisses both Westhoff and Gabriel as a couple of cranks and she convinces Shawn to leave. The stakes a raised considerably when Jasmine is abducted by an unseen, unnatural force and set in motion Shawn’s showdown with the Jinn!

To say there’s an outstanding performance in JINN would be stretching the truth just a little. All the lead actors turn in workmanlike performances. Only William Atherton and Faran Tahir, who plays a mental asylum patient named Ali, take their part and make it their own. Dominic Rains looks okay but his emotional range is quite limited and his tough-guy routine in the film’s finale is inadvertently funny. Beyond the performances, Jinn is a technically competent movie.

Robert Mehnert’s cinematography is first-rate and his experience as an aerial photographer helps to create a number of very impressive establishing long shots that provide a bigger visual scope to the film than would otherwise be expected.

Besides directing, Ajmal Zaheer Ahamd also served as Film Editor and Writer...

​Given his flair for capturing images on film, his future movies may benefit from a broader collaboration among specialists in the fields of writing and editing, for he has pruned his film back so hard that specific scenes lose their context. 

JINN (2014) USEFUL LINKS

Jinn (2014 film) - Wikipedia
​Jinn (2014) - IMDb
​Jinn (2018) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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