Dushman

Directed by: Tanuja Chandra

Starring: Kajol, Ashutosh Rana, Sanjay Dutt

Released: 1998

My rating: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

Few crimes are as awful as a rape. Not only it causes physical harm, it strips the victim of their dignity, violates their privacy, often it crushes their spirit. And when a rape ends with just as violent murder, hardly anything the darkest nightmare could conjure up even compares. And yet that is exactly how this film starts and what it deals with. 

The lives of two twin sisters Naina and Sonia seem happy enough, with both going to the college and one of them accepting a marriage proposal from her boyfriend. In the good Bollywood tradition of twin behaviour, Naina (Kajol with long hair) is a calm, angelic and gentle being, whilst Sonia (Kajol in the most awful wig since the beginning of Bollywood until Anushka Sharma in P.K.) is loud, intimidating, roughened up kid. But then they capture attention of a rapist and Sonia pays the price. The angelic Naina sets on a quest of finding her sister´s killer, and hopes to prevent his perverted actions in the future. Her journey involves overcoming her own demons and fears, as well as some jogging and weight-lifting under the careful guidance of blind Sanjay Dutt.

Horrifying as it is, Dushman is a great film. I have not seen the Hollywood original, but I dare say Dushman definitely is a more than worthy remake. Perhaps the best scene are the moments before Sonia´s death, as Naina helplessly, verging on hysteria, runs among the cars in traffic jam, all the time listening to Sonia´s screams over the cell-phone. The portrayal of the rapist and murdered is excellent, showing him not only as a disgusting deviant, but also a cunning liar and sly operator, who manipulates the only woman who (for whatever reason) actually cares for him.

The star of the whole thing is of course Kajol, who is only challenged in her performance by truly terrifying Ashutosh Rana. It is by far the best work I´ve seen Kajol doing and I would be much happier if people would talk about her talent with references to films like this rather than to mediocre stuff like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or even worse to K3G. Dushman gives her a great scope and great material to work with and she seizes the opportunity. However I would have been much happier had there be no love subplot, which I found completely unnecessary, not to mention Sanjay and Kajol do not work as a jodi to me, not at all. Sanjay overal did well, but his character, just as the whole subplot, was given more importance than I would like, as I was hyped about all the thrilling stuff and confrontations between Kajol and Ashutosh, and Sanjay bits were only slowing everything down and distracted one´s interest. For the sake of everything it would have been better if we saw more of the training than romance.

The climax was way too violent, way too long and the music behind it way too awful. And the very ending took away from the feeling of satisfaction brought in by the climax. The romance nobody cared about should not have diluted the sense of relief and justice previously brought on by the bloody death of the rapist at the hands of his upcoming victim.

Excellent thriller I cannot recommend to ladies as a late night movie unless you have a box of chocolate, strong boyfriend and fully loaded Beretta by your side.

Awarapan

Directed by: Mohit Suri

Starring: Emraan Hashmi, Mrinalini Sharma, Shriya Saran, Ashutosh Rana

Released: 2007

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

Awarapan suffered what I call „the fate of Lagaan“. I have not come across a single person who wouldn´t be praising it, and naturally the expectations shot skyhigh, never to be met. In the end I just had to admit that I would have liked Awarapan much more had I had not any preconcieved notion about it as well. It is a good film from all angles, but it lacks the "smashing" quality that would make it truly memorable.

Emraan Hashmi, whom I have an unexplainable dislike for (rooting probably in his resemblance to Anil Kapoor in both appearance and manner), plays Shivam, for whom, according to the posters, „Love was his only destination“. To get to the destination he chose a rather strange path though. We meet him as a right hand to a Hong Kong based gangster Malik, doing mostly the ugly and dirty work for him. Thus when he receives an order to spy on Malik´s mistress Reema, who apparently hasn´t shown a proper excitement while having sex with her lover and thus raising doubt about her own fidelity, he doesn´t question it, nor is he apprehensive to carry out her murder in case she would indeed prove to be unfaithful to his boss.

"Kill my girlfriend, OK?"

"Sure. Enjoy your holiday, Boss."

And she does! Apparently she is in love with a poor but handsome young man and wants nothing but to run away and return to India, from where she had been kidnapped and subsequently made to please Malik. Shivam points a gun to her head – and yet the ruthless gangster cannot press the trigger. You see, in Reema Shivam has recognized something he had been trying to forget and we see he is in fact a pitiful heart-broken atheist who once upon a time was in love with gorgeous and deeply religious Muslim girl Aliyah (Shriya Saran, who is apparently stuck with cameos and lame roles opposite unsalelable actors when it comes to Bollywood and is HURTS, oh it hurts). However the deeply in love Shivam lost his deeply religious Aliyah when her deeply offended father shot his daughter by mistake (of course he had been aiming at Shivam), and this loss marked Shivam forever.

Prayer can indeed save a life - even if not yours.

He pretty much gives his blessing to Reema and her lover and helps them to escape, which of course is not all that easy since Malik comes to know about it. The last 40 or so minutes are action packed and together with lots of shooting and cursing we get to see Shivam finally accepting God, whom he had never believed in before. Religious movies are rather tricky. They can easily offend everybody and tend to be preachy, Awarapan manages not to. Aliyah is a Muslim, and yet Shivam finds God in a Buddhist temple, indicating that God is one for everybody, no matter of what you call yourself – and that is one theme I shall always love and be grateful for it.

Emraan was good as long as his burnt out mode fitted the story, but once he sets out on his last quest, I would have expected him to actually show some emotion. All were scared of him in the film but there was nothing scary about him. He looked mostly confused and his stone face was not really appropriate to lot of situations. A hero with more of visible emotional range would have done wonders for the film. As I have indicated above, I was also left wanting more of Shriya, who only had an extended cameo in the film, although her character was essential to the story. I would love to see her in „big“ film with „big“ heroes, with her amount of talent and beauty she could easily overrule many wanna-be starlets that Bollywood is currently full of.