The invisible man wore tennis shoes.

(This review is a little more spoiler heavy than my usual. Proceed at your own risk.)
As Gayab (2004) begins, Vishnu (Tusshar Kapoor) is having a very bad day. At work, he fails to sell a single water filter. On the way home, his scooter is hit by a car, and the other driver intimidates him into overpaying for all the damages. At home, he’s even more bullied by his overbearing mother (Rasika Joshi) than usual, and is promptly thrown back out the door to go pay the electric bill. And worst of all, when he sees Mohini (Antara Mali), the girl from across the street whom he’s worshiped from afar for years, in a cafe and finally works up the courage to wink at her, he’s slapped by her rich, handsome, and athletic boyfriend Sameer (Raman Trikha) and left alone, crying and utterly humiliated.

Rather than go home and face his horrible mother again, Vishnu makes his way to the beach, where he discovers a small statue of an unknown laughing goddess half buried in the sand. At this point, Vishnu is well and truly tired of being laughed at, so he opens up to the unknown goddess, detailing all his frustrations and proclaiming that since no one needs him or notices him, he may as well just vanish. And that’s exactly what happens; Vishnu is suddenly, and permanently, invisible.

When he realizes what has happened, Vishnu assumes that he’s in a lighthearted fantasy movie; he’ll have a few wacky adventures, and along the way he’ll use his powers to reveal Sameer as the shallow cad that he obviously must be and win Mohini’s heart and they’ll have a dozen invisible kids and live happily ever after.

The trouble is, no one else is willing to play along. Sameer shows no signs of giving up on Mohini, no matter how many mean spirited pranks Vishnu plays on him. Mohini shows no signs of secretly longing for nerd love from the vanished boy across the street, despite Vishnu impersonating the voice of God. It’s soon clear that Vishnu has no idea of where to draw the line; he is outright stalking Mohini, and the pranks he plays on Sameer quickly escalate from wacky to vicious, culminating in a brutal beating.

Frustrated, Vishnu decides that it must be Sameer’s money leading Mohini astray, so he robs a bank and covers her bed with money to get her attention. It doesn’t work out as he’d hoped; Mohini flatly rejects him, threatens to kill him if he hurts Sameer, and then goes to the police. Vishnu is enraged, and threatens the city with a reign of . . . annoyance, really. He plays pranks on random innocents, but it’s strongly implied that he can and will do much worse unless the police turn Mohini over to him.

Gayab is really a supervillian movie, closer to Darr than Mr. India. Surprisingly, the movie still manages a happy ending; Vishnu isn’t the hero he thinks he is, but he’s not a two dimensional psychotic either, and when the right person delivers the Uncle Ben speech about power and responsibility, he’s willing to listen. Gayab managed to continually defy my expectations; I’m not sure if it’s a good movie or not, but it’s certainly interesting.