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Release
date:
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March 9, 2018
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Director:
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Vishal Pandya
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Cast:
Language:
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Urvashi Rautela,
Vivan Bhatena, Karan Wahi, Ihana Dhillon, Gulshan Grover
Hindi
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“I am somebody who can get
anybody but I want nobody other than your body,” a man in Hate Story 4 tells a woman he attacks on the street.
By the time this moment rolls by
on screen, we are halfway through the film and I, for one, was numbed by its
ludicrousness.
To be fair to dialogue writer
Milap Milan Zaveri, he prepared us for this bunkum in the opening sequence when
another villain urges the heroine not to panic, to give him time to sort out a
mess they are in, and she replies: “Tumne
jism nahin liya hota toh aaj waqt nahin maangna padta.”
Translated for the benefit of
those who do not know Hindi, but should not be deprived of the pleasures of
tacky wordplay, that reads: If you had not taken my body, today you would not
need to ask for my time.
The line comes in the opening
minutes of director Vishal Pandya’s Hate
Story 4, the latest instalment of a thriller series marked by heavy
dialoguebaazi, partially clad women, lustful men, long song sequences in which
their bodies heave and thrust against each other in an unconvincing enactment
of sex, all wrapped around a mystery that might not have been half bad if the
writing team did not have such a low opinion of the viewer and had cared to flesh
out their concept with more thought.
A quick glance at the Internet
tells me Hate Story 1-3 have been moderate successes. Not that they deserved any better, but the fact that they
notched up even average collections at the box office speaks volumes for the
sexually repressed nation that we are. Do people actually think sex is what is
going on on screen in any of these four films in which no one strips completely,
they simply writhe about semi-clothed, with female breasts bulging out above
bras that are still very much on and well-muscled male torsos are displayed
while crucial areas remain covered? Are there actually human beings out there
who are titillated by all that pretend sex, when instead they could easily
access pornography?
Hate
Story 4, like
the first three, is neither artistic enough to be called erotica nor functional
and overt enough to be call porn.
For what it is worth, the story
is about Aryan (Vivan Bhatena) and Rajveer (Karan Wahi), the spoilt sons of a
wealthy London-based Indian businessman. Aryan falls out with his girlfriend
Rishma (Ihana Dhillon) and the boys fall out with each other over Tasha (Urvashi
Rautela), a beautiful model who they launch through their enterprise.
During the course of the film,
someone kills someone as a result of which someone else sets out to take
revenge, no one can be trusted and everyone betrays everyone.
The three leads have great
bodies. Rautela and Bhatena have shown flashes of potential in earlier works,
but Wahi, I fear, has not one acting cell in his body. All three ham their way
through this revenge saga set in London, in the company of fellow hamster
Gulshan Grover playing Aryan and Rajveer’s Daddy.
While characters who treat women
like crap exist in this world, the director himself reveals his low opinion of
the female half of the species with the way the camera captures women here,
repeatedly closing in on boobs and butts, often before we have even seen their
faces.
The first sight we get of a
character called Monica is a close-up of her cleavage, then a switch to her
derriere encased in tiny lingerie, and only then her face. Tasha’s introductory
shot is of her bottom raised in the air as she crouches cat-like on a shiny
stage, then the camera slides over her in various feline poses, focusing on fragments
of her before it finally deigns to rest on her countenance.
Date rape is casually tossed
around in the screenplay. Efforts at earnestness end up sounding laughable or
unintentionally crude, such as during that romantic number Tum Mere Ho in which Aryan and Rishma feel each other up
extensively on a bridge by a water body, and a woman singer’s voice goes: “Mere andar mujhse zyaada tum” (there is
less of me and more of you inside me). Yikes!
Hate
Story 4 is too
low-brow to be offensive, but it tries its best to earn that tag when in the
end it suddenly develops scruples and, having objectified women from start to
finish, closes with statistics on crimes against women on screen, followed by this
exhortation: “Fight the evil of eveteasing.” Nau sau choohein khaake etc etc…
The only thing more fake than
this concern for women is the simulated sex in Hate Story 4. Spare us your bogus conscience, please.
Rating
(out of five stars): 1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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A
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Running time:
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131 minutes
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This review was also published on Firstpost:
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