Ek Hasina Thi
Another movie from the Verma camp. Another off-beat movie, but is it good enough? Lets see...
Story:-
It’s all about a woman’s ....nah... a Hasina’s revenge against a cheat. Karan Singh Rathaur (Saif) has connections with the bhailog. One fine day, the Cassanova chhokra meets Urmila who works for a tourist company. The two fall in love. But wait here. There is no hunky-dory stuff in this movie so forget about anything remotely like naach-gaana. What U have is a very down-to-earth relationship.
He frames her for his neck in a murder case and this is when the movie starts to come into its own. With the help of a malicious lawyer (remember the Abhijit of CID?), he manages to get her convicted and handed a 7 yr imprisonment. In the jail, she discovers the demon inside her, pledges revenge and breaks the jail (the only sequence which looks slightly unconvincing in the entire movie).
Now shekills a bhaiand frames him. Here the movie takes interesting turns which will surely stun U no matter how prepared U are. So how does she take revenge? By leaving him bound with ropes in a cave with lots of mice (No not the one in Ur hand right now.). What does she do next? Surrender to Police! What a waste!... Alright, I think I should stop imagining now.
Direction-
It is one of the most realistic movies U’ll see despite the rather far-fetched story. The heroine dares the typical rickety-looking Indian rikshaw, all the locations are of India only and there’s absolutely nothing that looks out-of-place. Sriram Raghavan gives an explanation for everything. Yes, it is a thriller but there’s nothing hidden from the viewer right from the start, no flashbacks revealing hidden peices of the story which is very novel indeed. The only thing that glues U is the badla thing. And it does not disappoint at all.
Performances-
Urmila, Urmila, Urmila and Urmila. There’s nothing like a typical ’’main usko chodoongi nahi’’ from her - its all said through her eyes. There’s a sequence where she fights a daadi (analogy with daada)-nope there’s no karate kicks or desi laats, only realistic baal kheechna- and she does a terrific job (on the acting front, I mean). There is something about her that U can feel her gritted teeth and resolve throughout the second half. And as far as the hasina factor is concerned, she looks gorgeous but at same time, she seems like the lady U saw the other day - which further lends reality to the narration.
Saif is excellent. His character is actually hard to describe. He’s not a small time thug, not a bhai, not a contract killer but a mix of these. The beauty of his enaction is that though it is a negative role, U’ll like him right from the moment he comes onscreen.
Seema Biswas as the cool cop is pretty good too. She displays a completely new style of dialogue delivery and looks very convincing.
The Verdict-
One gem of a movie. U won’t get to see many better thrillers than this especially from Bollywood. The narration is grippy, the twists dumb-founding and the enaction simply brilliant.
-Rahul-
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