Hate Story 2
Director: Vishal Pandya
Starring: Surveen Chawla, Sushant Singh, Jay Bhanushali
One star
A corrupt politician, an unyielding police officer, a pretty young thing, an ill-fated admirer and a Sunny Leone item number: the director Vishal Pandya's thriller Hate Story 2, which opened in the UAE on Thursday, has it all, and yet it fails to live up to the commercial or critical success of its 2012 prequel, Hate Story, directed by Vivek Agnihotri.
The film's racy trailer amassed 17 million views within just 10 days of its release and set up expectations that were dismally shattered upon the film's release. For starters, the very bits that racked up the views for the trailer were deemed objectionable by the Indian censor boards and didn't make the final cut. Depending on which version you get a hold of, you might not even be able to catch the second-biggest thing this film had going for it: the Sunny Leone item number Pink Lips.
The premise of the film is the vendetta of a woman wronged. Sonika, played by Surveen Chawla (well-known as Charu Sinha from the TV series Kahiin to Hoga), is the unwilling mistress of the corrupt politician Mandar Mhatre (Sushant Singh). Also a keen photography student, she falls in love with her classmate Akshay (Jay Bhanushali). No prizes for guessing why the two lovebirds cannot be together. Throw in a tenacious cop and a dutiful wife (Mhatre's) and you have a seriously confused storyline.
Jumping between Mumbai and Goa, the story comes to its climactic end where the corrupt politician, his ex-mistress and his wife are in a room alone and someone must die. The scene might have been effective had its build-up not been so farcical.
There is practically no character development. One is left guessing how Sonika and Akshay fall in love, or how Sonika goes from being the politician's helpless mistress to more like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. A far cry from Rekha's Aarti in 1988's Khoon Bhari Maang (arguably Bollywood's best female-centric revenge thriller to date), where the transformation was hair-raisingly real, Sonika is shown suffering from debilitating muscle spasms one moment and going on a murderous revenge rampage the next.
That the lead actors are not A-listers did the film no favours. Despite their acting prowess on TV, it is obvious that Chawla and Bhanushali have some way to go before they become compelling Bollywood leads.
The soundtrack could have been the film's saving grace, but it wasn't. But not for lack of effort on the production team's part. They did their very best by including both an item number and a Bollywood reprise, but neither hit the mark. The reprise is not impressive as a track and is filmed somewhat awkwardly. Sunny Leone's Pink Lips is choreographed and filmed quite well, but its random insertion into the storyline gives the impression of the director and producers grasping at straws.
Bollywood is certainly capable of making a good thriller, but this is not one of them.
Hate Story 2 is out now in UAE cinemas
artslife@thenational.ae
