Hawa break, Hawa kit kat. Take my advice, a crunchy Kit Kat by the beach is a much better option than the tantalizing time spent seeing this helluva movie. Incidentally, Hawa is Guddu Dhanoa’s submitted entry to the now-prolific horror-n-thriller genre contest. Aimed at attracting the Bhoot kinda subscribers as well as the general hoi polloi, I don’t see this ‘sexual violence’ trauma getting anywhere.
To begin with, I must say that the subject and storyline were worth doing justice to. I would assume that men of mettle would grab the first opportunity to direct a venture that has a captivating basic-storyline as this one. This is again barring the fact that the story (by Sutanu Gupta) is a one-of-its-kind case of dare devil multiple robberies consisting of liberal doses of thefts from the celebrated likes of “The Entity” and “Poltergeist”, thereby creating unwanted bouts of breathlessness.
Sanjana’s (Tabu) army officer husband (Amit Behl) abandons their marriage and walks out of the house with a single suitcase in his hand and body draped in an over-embellished army uniform. His shoulder collar has a star, an anchor and two-cross swords- Goodness knows which rank that symbolizes! Being an army officer’s son myself, I am yet to come across a rank represented by these brasses. Sanjana then shifts lock-stock-barrel to a bungalow at Manali with her two daughters, a dog and brother Vicky (Imraan Khan). From the looks of the movie, her brother is almost always unemployed and keeps doing odd jobs like attending to the mechanic who is repairing their car, helping the dog litter, wearing different kinds of Bermudas, launching a search hunt for the dog, wrapping himself in a blanket like a terrorist and filling in as a make-shift baby sitter.
Sanjana and dog-breeding brother find all the 936 doors and windows of the house open on their first night of stay in the house. The next night their pet dog disappears, Sanjana hears noises of someone marathoning on the roof, wakes up the bacchha party and the breeder. Come next day, doggie is back, tries attacking her and drops dead. The following night, an asthma-diagnosed ghost rapes Sanjana. She confides in her friend (Grusha Kapoor) who puts her on to a psychiatrist (Shahbaaz Khan). “Split Personality!!!” exclaims the always-in-suit doc. Annoyed, Sanjana exits.
The sex-starved ghost keeps tormenting the lone protagonist time and again. Sanjana moves to her friend’s house but has to return to her “Destiny Bungalow” because her friend’s husband (Vishwajeet Pradhan) besides eating toast and butter at night also hammers his unhappiness about having visitors over.
The story continues…. 3 fully automated noctilucent candles light up every night, the bed earthquakes like no one’s business, Mr. Asthma not only repeatedly rapes Sanjana, but races her car at speeds that could put Rubens Barichello and Juan Pablo Montoya to shame, too. Life becomes hell and the story continues, a second time.
The suit-boot doctor then brings in an advanced version of himself whose profession best appears to be that of a psychia-xorcist (Mukesh Tiwari). Asthma wala kidnaps the younger daughter (Didn’t you know that ghosts in Manali indulge in child-kidnapping too?) The dual degree holder assures Sanjana of his help provided she fights her own battle. She immediately hugs him (For what???? Will somebody please explain?). He then chants multi-lingual mantras from an old and battered book and is rocketed and planted on to a tree by Asthma Singh. There on, Sanjana wages a relentless 10-minute battle against the “Sex ke liye kuch bhi karega ghost”. Physically the ghost appears to be the kumbh ke mele me lost twin of the rock n roller from Species 2. Success follows the very next minute and the younger daughter is safely returned by the fairy-wing-bestowed and Jesus-turned- Avtar Gill (Sanjana’s step-pop). The final scene of the movie does have impact and has the “its never over” blend which I think will be well received by the audiences.
The pluses of the movie are S. Natu’s cinematography (though the camera hasn’t been exploited all that well to compliment the script), Surender Sodhi’s background score and the special effects to a certain extent. Performance-wise I think, Tabu does a fabulous job though I don’t quite understand why wasn’t she given enough scope to exhibit her acting skills other than the scenes that follow her repeated rapes. One of the other drawbacks is the screenplay, which makes the movie wobble every 10 minutes. The editor crafts the reel fine. The director, Guddu Dhanoa struggles to deliver though he does handle the first half in a controlled manner.
Net-net, Hawa doesn’t really prove to be the Hawaiian dream that the producer and the director may have fantasized about. The story has all the ingredients of a good horror movie but the treatment it receives while being transformed into a film, denies it every justice. Watch this one if you really can’t avoid…...Else trust me on the Kit Kat.
© Milind Gadagkar 2003