Ek Hasina Thi

Yeaaaa.. I have entered into double figures with this review...

Ek Hasina Thi, Ek Diwana Tha.. Dono Mile..

Jaane Kyon, kaun kiska shikaar hua..

’’Ek Hasina Thi’’, the latest offering from the famed RGV(Ram Gopal Varma) stables, belongs to the latest fad of hatke cinema. Short is now sweet, tight scripts are now worshipped, songs are now deemed boring, sex is no longer taboo..

Welcome to the new age of Bollywood!!

’’Ek Hasina Thi’’, unlike what its name suggests, by not at all a romantic fable, rather its a quick paced crime thriller. Directed by debutant Sriram Raghavan, loosely inspired by the Hollywood Ashley Judd-Tommy Lee Jones starrer ’’Double Jeopardy’’, the movie starts off the way most romantic love stories do.

Girl meets guy, he saves her purse and her izzat, they fall in live, share a cup of coffee and a night together..

Sarika(Urmila) works in a travel agency in Mumbai. She is your usual girl next door, who like many innumerable females in Mumbai, stays alone, commutes by taxis and eats Maggi for dinner..

One day, she meets Karan(Saif Ali Khan) in a supermarket, and in a typical Bollywood legend style, he gets her purse back from a thief and get to share a cuppa coffee with her as a reward. However, Karan is not your run-of-the-mill Bollywood hero, he has something sinister about him, his unshaven stubble, his crude wise-cracks.. Something..

He eventually invites himself into Sarika’s apartment, wherein he makes advances towards her, and of course gets thrown out. Subsequently, he saves her from the typical izzat-looters and gets himself invited a second time to her apartment.. This time, he is here to stay.

The love story advances, till an incident occurs that turns Sarika’s world upside down. She lands up in the jail because of Karan and Karan asks her not to drag him into the picture and promises to get her out of the jail. The inevitable courtroom scenes follow, and Sarika is sentenced to seven years in prison.

What follows is the transformation of Sarika from an innocent girl to a ruthless woman, a woman who asks talks less and does more..

The movie, though not a very novel plot, is blessed with an extremely taut script, and you never have a sense of laxity at any point of time. The love story between the protagonists has been deftly handled, though the love seems a trifle bit immature. The inital meeting between Sarika and Karan are really funny and laughable and you can almost forgive Sarika for falling into Karan’s trap.

But, the crux of the story comes about half an hour into the movie and is neatly done. From then on, the movie sticks to its pace and its plot without other wayward interests.

Performance wise, Saif Ali Khan is a revelation. The difference between Karan and the Sam of ’’Dil Chahta Hai’’ is stark, though he has carried out both the performances with the full of his life. You can almost feel the underlying cold in his eyes, his raw humour at the start of the movie is in synch with his personality, his confusion in the middle of the movie where he does not know what is going on around him, his dangerous revelation towards the end of the movie... All this has been expertly expressed by Saif.. Saif has indeed come a long way since his ’’Hameshaa’’ days..

There are other characters thrown in, like Seema Biswas as the inspector in-charge. But the movie belongs to Urmi baby. Here is an actress who has matured tremendously, and who seems to defy the fact that sky is the limit!! The transformation of Sarika from the innocent girl next door to the ruthless scorned woman is amazingly expressed by Umri, notice her contorted face when she realizes the game that Karan is playing, notice her helpless expressions when she meets her parents in prison, notice her confusions in the court.. She has come out with a one of the best performances in recent times.. Full marks to her..

Direction wise, Sriram has managed to express the essence of the movie, without bothering to go about the norms of chiffon sarees and crying heroes. Amazing debut.

Overall, a must see. Because, its the face of Bollywood that is changing, watch it as its changing, you might not recognize it later.