2013-09-06

20130906: Thriller Review--Hate Story



Name: Hate Story (2012)
IMDb: link to Hate Story page

Genres: Thriller, Crime.  Country of origin: India.

Cast: Paoli Dam as Kaavya Krishna (the protagonist), Ghishan Deviaiah as Siddharth Dhanrajgir (her tormentor), Nikhil Dwivedi as Vicky (Kaavya's ally), Joy Sengupta as Rajdev.

Directed by: Vivek Agnihotri.   Written by: Vikram Bhatt, Rohit Malhotra.


The Three Acts: 

The initial tableaux:
Journalist Kaavya exposes corruption between an industrialist and a judge regarding fixing cement prices.  The industrialist strikes back, by offering her a job she could not refuse, then romancing her, including a rather large stone on a ring, plus other expensive items. Then he rejects her: the job is gone, the 'romance' was a ploy, and he's not done screwing her over yet. First off, her job search is a bust.

Her pregnancy by Sid does not change his campaign against her.  He lures her outside her apartment, then gives her something like chloroform to knock her out. Thugs transport her to a cheap clinic to abort the fetus forcibly, to sterilize her without consent, then to leave her with no assets in the middle of nowhere.  She barely gets in touch with her family, who save her life, but then rejects her upon finding out her recent story.

Delineation of conflicts:
Kaavya wants revenge against Sid: physical retribution, emotional retribution, retribution against his reputation and wealth.  Sid, being a born bully, figures that the victim is the cause of the problem, and wishes to crush Kaavya into the deepest places of degradation and despair.

Kaavya becomes a high class prostitute to gain information and leverage against Sid.  Sid employs thugs and surveillance to counter her efforts and to damage her further.

Resolution:
The two principals deal considerable damage to each other.  Who remains standing at the end?

One line summary: Revenge, prostitution, government corruption, and industrial spying in modern India.

Statistics

Cinematography: 8/10 The camera work varies from just competent to almost glorious.

Sound: 4/10 The interjected music routines were more than a bit intrusive, unlikely, and off-putting.

Acting: 5/10 This was a mixed bag.  Some of the minor players are indifferent.   Joy Sengupta was fairly wooden, for instance.  Ghishan Deviaiah's Jekyll and Hyde performance was not convincing.  On the other hand, Nikhil Dwivedi was fine as Vicky, and Paoli Dam was wonderful as Kaavya.

Screenplay: 5/10 It is difficult to take this one seriously.  That is, did you just do that?  Seriously?  The plot's twists and turns were frequent and about 50 percent of them were too unlikely to believe. The house of cards the Sid character had constructed was just too unwieldy to hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

Final Rating: 5/10

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