Saturday, March 10, 2018
Hate Story 4
Revenge On The Rocks
Hate Story 4 has
Urvashi Rautela as Tasha, whose butt is seen before her face, as she dances in
a nightclub to seduce rich dude Rajveer (Karan Wahi). So hot is she that Rajveer’s older brother
Aryan (Vivan Bhathena) also lusts after her. Their father Vikram Khurana
(Gulshan Grover), also gives her a once over, but has to be hands off, because
he is standing for the mayoral elections in London. Aryan already has a
girlfriend Rishma (Ihana Dhillon), so his scheme to get Tasha into bed causes
some major complications that involve murder, blackmail and revenge.
If
there is a Hate Story 4, there must have been three before it, but it would
require a lot of effort to recall any of them—they are that watch-and-forget.
All seem to have one thing in common, a woman’s use of her body and sex appeal
for revenge. Which means that they star
women with ‘strippable’ figures and a camera that lasciviously zooms on their
body parts. So it has its audience cut out to, the kind that needs Hindi
subtitles for elementary English dialogue,
like “Hey Baby” (Aye suno). And then, the makers have the gall to quote
crimes against women statistics at the end, with an anti eve-teasing message.
Hate Story 4 has
Urvashi Rautela as Tasha, whose butt is seen before her face, as she dances in
a nightclub to seduce rich dude Rajveer (Karan Wahi). So hot is she that Rajveer’s older brother
Aryan (Vivan Bhathena) also lusts after her. Their father Vikram Khurana
(Gulshan Grover), also gives her a once over, but has to be hands off, because
he is standing for the mayoral elections in London. Aryan already has a
girlfriend Rishma (Ihana Dhillon), so his scheme to get Tasha into bed causes
some major complications that involve murder, blackmail and revenge.
The
brothers are unmitigated creeps with women, but somehow lose whatever little sense
they have over Tasha, who wanders around in tight/short cleavage-revealing
clothes. So one brother gifts her a mansion, another gives her a swanky car,
while the father frets over elections. In
the one song she has, Rishma shows skin too, but Aryan keeps her around because
she is good in the bedroom and boardroom (his words). Still, he is not above
spiking a woman’s drink to “take advantage” of her.
The
film is so hilariously bad, with such convoluted dialogue that merrily throws
in references to the Ramayan and Mahabharat.
Even though it is set in London, the film cannot help looking tacky, and
between the dozen actors with speaking parts, there’s not one half-way decent
performance. Still, for all you know, there will be a fifth film in the
franchise!
Labels: Cinemaah
3 Storeys
Chawl Tales
The famous chawls of Mumbai are
slowly vanishing from the city’s landscape. So Arjun Mukherjee’s portmanteau
film, 3 Storeys, evokes a touch of
nostalgia for a way of life that involved whole communities living in close
proximity, and becoming like family to one another.
The three stories, narrated by a
female voice revealed at the end, are woven around the chawl called Maya Nagar.
They are unconnected, even though various characters living there saunter
through all of them. The first—most interesting and most unconvincing
too—involves a well-dressed Vishal Naik (Pulkit Samrat) willing to pay four
times the price for a room in the chawl to the crabby Flory Mendonca (Renuka
Shahane—artificially aged and padded).
As they make small talk over coffee after the deal is signed, the
mystery of the overpriced room is revealed, and there is a just desserts kind
of twist in the tale.
The other two stories are prosaic by
comparison. One has unhappy, battered wife Varsha (Masumeh Makhija) and her
broken heart; Shankar, the man she loved (Sharman Joshi), asked her to wait for
a year and never showed up. In the age
of mobile phones, this contrived yarn about a tragic misunderstanding does not
quite work.
In the third, a Muslim boy Sohail
(Ankit Rathi) elopes with a Hindu girl, Malini (Aisha Ahmed), only to discover the shocking reason why their
parents oppose their romance. In the background, is brightly-clad, siren (Richa
Chadda) and her silent admirer, a burly cop, Ganpat (Himanshu Malik).
The
cast is efficient, the film has a bearable running time, but it is not
consistently engaging. It’s set in a
chawl just so that the narrator can look into the lives of the characters,
since the somewhat open style of architecture encourages snooping; but the
quaint Mumbai institution ought to have played a greater part in the narrative. Think Jaagte
Raho, Piya Ka Ghar and Katha among others.
Labels: Cinemaah
