Covering Bollywood and the Hindi Cinema

Pooja Bhatt as a director has been pretty unpredictable and at times her movies fail to live up to all the hype. Last Friday, her latest directorial venture Dhoka was released and here is a review from a leading daily.

Terrific story – an earnest policeman discovers that his wife was a suicide bomber. The theme has its abiding relevance, and is dealt with a degree of courage. Now only if Pooja Bhatt’s skills as a director matched her heart pangs.

Like it or not, the screenplay is much too convoluted, the sound levels are as cacophonous as a fish market and the subsidiary characters are pure oddballs. The cop’s old flame shows up from Sydney to display retro-off-shoulder outfits, senior cop Gulshan Grover goes around with pursed lips as if he didn’t approve of the samosas in the police canteen. And hello, a terrorist major domo (Thick Beard) conducts a difficult-to-grasp conversation in an empty Capitol cinema (what were they screening.. documentaries?).

The second-half perks up and addresses issues on nationalism. You miss the vital emotional layer though (wife Tulip Joshi is either seen in a framed photo or in a bath-tub).

Newcomer Muzammil Ibrahim, in a tough role, is promising.. he has a strong screen presence. But why make his eyes glisten with glycerine so often? That apart, Dhokha is the most endurable of the threesome released this week. Er.. which is not saying much.. but.

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