April 21, 2012 Y. Sunita Chowdary
Hate Story is caught in a time warp, not just that it even fails to give the cheap thrills to the lovers of B grade cinema too. Vikram Bhatt likes stories where the wronged gets a kick out of victory but by the end of the film, he or she too has to be destroyed for the sinned along with the sinner must go, it is poetic justice.
"Sex kiya hai?" asks the biggest whore in town when Kavya Krishna (Paoli Dam) approaches her for lessons. Yes, she has done it but now wants to learn the technique to do it with people whom she doesn't love. Shake it, take it and fake it is the prostitute's advice to Kavya and the latter takes it rather too seriously; She fakes her performance on the screen too and also the accent. She at times pronounces 'cement' as 'seement' (sic).
A journalist gets a scoop, she exposes a scam of a cement company and the story that follows is not of her brains but the body. She uses it eventually to seek revenge. Siddarth Dhanrajgir (Gulshan Devaiah), who runs the Company runs his favourite line "I f*** the people who f***with me," after professionally and sexually exploiting her for the sting operation masterminded and executed on him.
We must believe that a scribe in 2012 has no other go to get back at him and so the only way she thinks of finishing him is sleep with and use Dhanrajgir's colleagues. There is a retro scene of her blackmailing and threatening Dhanrajgir when she talks about using the DNA test, and in order to put an end to it, he gets her abducted and makes sure that she doesn't conceive again in her life time.
Despite the suspension of belief on many occasions, there are a few plus points, like the hate, anger of the new prostitute is consistent. The actor with the dusky complexion is beautiful, she has typical Bong features and her doe-shaped eyes are very expressive. With a great screen presence, she does her job without inhibition and times even threatens to dominate the rest but for the poor dialogues.
Kavya moves step by step to a bigger place and this time it's her farm house where she bathes in a huge tub filled with rose petals with her clients. Wonder how, such a successful woman whether it's brains or the body that helped her, forgets to employ security guards. There is no explanation as to how easily a private detective company slips into her home and fixes secret cameras and why there is not a single soul living with her. The driver is never seen.
The director uses the same technique, the antique screenplay and the scenes are predictable, either it has to be a share holders meet or the denoument should take place while quoting the wrong and right stock price. In one scene Kavya asks her best friend Nikhil Dvivedi to help her out with some accounts and he says, why don't you sleep with a chartered accountant and get him do it for you.
This man has a cutting plier and is constantly seen pruning Bonsai and secretly loving her. The audience here clearly is expected to have a soft corner for a stupid woman for the choices she makes, who trades her body and intelligence for money, dumps her boyfriend heartlessly and pretends as if she is just friends with him.
The female folk should thank Vikram Bhatt for showing some mercy by letting Kavya Krishna reveal statistics and discussing other business matters. Otherwise the world's oldest profession would have been the sole reason behind the conquest of mind and matter. Gulshan Devaiah with his stammering act makes an interesting watch and Paoli with her kinky, bold and comfortable body langauge sails smoothly.
The age old story sinks clearly due to the absence of powerful dialogues, clearly, the audience expected more than I f*** those who f*** with me.
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