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Tag: Sara Loren

  • Barkhaa…Who?

    Barkhaa…Who?

    MUMBAI: Barkhaa is an old fashioned story revisited. It is about a city lad on a visit to a picturesque location where he falls for another visitor. As a modern version, the theme is about one sided love, an obsession and about his love ending up in a dance bar.

     

    Taaha Shah, a reputed and wealthy lawyer’s son, is on a visit to Haryana, where he spots Sara Loren and falls in love with her. She is not aware of his feelings or scrutiny. But, soon, Sara has vanished from the scene and Tahaa does not know where to look for her.

     

    Back to routine, he is asked to run an errand for his lawyer father, Puneet Issar, to meet a dance bar owner client of his. Taaha is invited by the bar owner to come visit his bar. When Taaha does so, he gets an unpleasant surprise. Sara is one of the bar dancers at the joint. Now, Taaha may be obsessed with Sara but, for a reputed, traditional Tahaa, son of a renowned lawyer, a bar girl is not supposed to be an ideal object of romance.

     

    Since Taaha is in a quandary as his love for Sara is overpowering, he is drawn to the bar constantly. He lands up there and takes to drinking. He drowns his sorrows and shock of his love being a dance bar girl by just looking at her every day without communicating.

     

    Sara is not a mere bar girl, she is talented too and has penned a book, which Taaha is invited to inaugurate. After reading the book, Taaha learns the story of Sara’s life, her betrayal by Taaha’s own friend and her having been left with a child out of wedlock.  The book mentions no author’s name but Taaha somehow connects it to Sara.

     

    It is time for the old-fashioned melodrama. Taaha is summoned to his hospitalized mother. Meanwhile, Issar is plotting to get Sara out of Taaha’s life. As a reputed lawyer, he can’t have a bar girl as his daughter in law. But, such films are all about happy endings. So be it.

     

    Sara acts well and has a good presence. Taaha does well. The direction is fair and the film has a pleasant musical score.

     

    But with no face value and a lack of promotion, Barkhaa will only add to numbers, nothing to box office.

     

    Producer: Shaban Hashmi.

    Director: Shadaa Mirza.

    Cast: Sara Loren, Taaha Shah, Puneet Issar.

  • Murder 3: Poor direction, faulty casting

    Murder 3: Poor direction, faulty casting

    MUMBAI: Murder 3 is a usual Bhatt brand of film. Expect romance, passion, adultery, betrayal, crime and, often, good music. For want of titles as well as to avoid labouring to find one, the film is titled Murder 3 though, as one eventually discovers, is a misnomer. The film is a legit version of the Colombian film, La Cara Oculta (English title: The Hidden Face)

    Producer: Mukesh Bhatt.

    Director: Vishesh Bhatt.

    Cast: Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sara Loren, Rajesh Shringarpure, Shekhar Shukla, Bugs Bhargava.

    Randeep Hooda is a renowned wildlife photographer in South Africa. One fine day, a top agency in India invites him to shoot fashion photographs! What caused this desperate situation in the Indian fashion photography scene is left to the viewer‘s imagination. Hooda arrives with his girlfriend, Aditi Rao Hydari, in tow. She can‘t think of a life without him and chucks her career in South Africa.

    Hooda loves to be close to nature. He acquires a palatial villa away from the crowds, settles down with Hydari and gets on with his work. He loves Hydari immensely but is not averse to other affairs on the side. Hydari, with her woman‘s instincts, sniffs his proximity to a hair stylist but Hooda tackles her nagging by showing more affection every time. That is when Hydari learns of a hidden vault, a safe room in the villa from the time of its previous owner. It was built by the owner during the freedom struggle to escape mobs in case of trouble. Considering it was made in the 1940s, the vault is a marvel of technology. It has one way glasses, speakers with the whole villa bugged and is safe enough to survive for a long period without the outside world finding out.

    Desperate to check Hooda‘s love for her, Hydari decides to hide in the vault. She shoots her departing message on a camera that she is leaving for good and leaves a note for Hooda. She watches as Hooda walks into the villa with her favourite white roses, notices the note and is devastated to watch her message. Hydari is convinced Hooda loves her truly after watching his plight and now wants to come out of the vault and surprise him. Sadly for her, in the hurry to hide, she has dropped the key outside.

    Hooda has taken to drinking and drowning his sorrows in alcohol. On one such binge at a bar, totally knocked out of senses, he is noticed by a staffer, Sara Loren. She develops sympathy for him which turns into love and soon she replaces Hydari in Hooda‘s bed, oblivious to the fact that they are being watched from behind the glass. However, Loren‘s stay at the villa is not pleasant. There is an eerie feeling all around, sudden power outages and suspicious sounds from plumbing.

    Meanwhile, the police, Shekhar Shukla and Rajesh Shringarpure, are searching for the missing Hydari with their prime suspect being Hooda. Shringarpure has a rather personal interest in the case and for doubting Hooda since Loren has been his love since college, albeit one sided. There are no other characters in the story and hence no scope for red herrings.

    It should have been an easy enough task to adapt a foreign film but the problem starts with casting of Hooda as the lead man. Even though he wears an aura of mystery, in most parts he has to romance three girls which needed a romantic image. Dressing him up with a wig for straight hair does not help take away his hard face. The script makes the second half repeat most scenes of the first half. Vishesh Bhatt‘s direction needs much honing yet: an investigating officer, Shringarpure, is armed like a sharpshooter; a picnic spread looks like a small utility store, and so on. Music looks like a continuation of past scores and lacks appeal. Of the two, Hydari has the better part and does well while Loren is passable.

    Murder 3 is a no go at the box office.