Rajeev Masand’s Review Of Dhoka

Film critic Rajeev Masand reviews Pooja Bhatt’s Dhoka. Here is what he says to say about the movie.

Noble intentions alone don’t make a good film, and that becomes clear as crystal while watching Pooja Bhatt’s new film Dhokha, this week’s other new release. The film, her third directorial outing after Paap and Holiday, is unarguably the most relevant of her three films because it touches upon themes that are significant and critical.

Newcomer Muzammil Ibrahim stars as a young Muslim police officer who learns that his cute-as-a-cupcake wife Tulip Joshi may have been a suicide bomber responsible for the death of many innocent people.

It’s a discovery he can’t quite come to terms with because it dawns on him that he may have never really known this person he shared his home, his heart and his life with for two whole years.

Determined to get some answers, he sets off on a mission to trace why and how she may have led this double life.

Now with this film Pooja Bhatt makes an earnest attempt to address so many urgent issues - everything from communal prejudices and cultural stereotyping to terrorism in the name of religion and exploitation at the hands of the establishment. Problem is, in her over-enthusiasm she forgets that key rule that movie directors can never really afford to forget - feature film is a popular medium, it must engage. It mustn’t become a bhashan that bores the audience.

Despite a solid premise, Dhokha fails to realise its potential because the screenplay is often contrived, often convenient, and at times just hopelessly idealistic.

An everyday policeman just tumbles into a full-fledged terrorist outfit. A suspicious spiritual leader shows up out of thin air to participate in a never-ending question-answer session on the relevance of jihad. And a suicide bomber strapped with kilos of RDX gets to go home scot-free after he’s persuaded not to blow up VT Station. If only the world were so simple.

 

 

Pic : Dhoka Movie Review

On the up side, I’m happy to report that unlike Pooja Bhatt’s previous directorial offerings, Dhokha is not a Hollywood-film remake, it is instead inspired from real events.

The case of the 19-year-old student Ishrat Jahan who was gunned down by the Ahmedabad police for allegedly plotting the murder of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is as much an inspiration for the plot of this film as is the case of software engineer Khwaja Yunus, a suspect in the 2002 Ghatkopar blast incident who was allegedly killed in police custody.

This is a film you badly want to like because it’s well intended and because it’s got its heart in the right place, but how you wish it didn’t go about its job in such a perfunctory manner.

Few films these days have much to say, so when you come across a film that does, it’s a pity it doesn’t make its point hard enough. And by hard enough I don’t mean, beating the audience on the head with a message, rather driving the point home by illustrating its repercussions.

Of the film’s cast, veterans Gulshan Grover and Anupam Kher lend credibility to the occasionally over-dramatic scenes, while Munish Makhija as the spiritual leader is as expressive as a block of wood.

Mercifully we are spared the full range of Tulip Joshi’s incompetent acting because she’s barely in the film and has less than three dialogues to speak, but we must endure instead newcomer Aushima Sawhney’s labored performance as the cop’s ex-girlfriend who turns up just in time to lend a supportive shoulder.

In many ways, the star of Dhokha is model Muzammil Ibrahim who makes his acting debut as the betrayed husband. Much in the same way that she photographed her previous leading men John Abraham and Dino Morea, director Pooja Bhatt for the most part films her new hero as a Playgirl centrespread, baring his perfect abs in romantic scenes, in shower scenes, even in fight scenes and chase scenes. But surprisingly, there’s more to him that the six-pack - Muzammil delivers a confident performance and shows some genuine star potential.

The film itself could have been so much more. Remember, the films you either immensely enjoy or even violently detest are the ones you’re likely to remember for a long time to come. But Dhokha turns out to be one those average films that evokes no strong reaction.

It’s a film that you only feel indifferent towards. Then that’s two out of five for Pooja Bhatt’s Dhokha, which unfolds at a pace slower than my 81-year-old grandmother.

Also a word of advice to the director - why would you repeatedly play into the hands of critics by choosing titles that literally beg to be punned? After committing the paap of ripping off two American films, Pooja Bhatt returns from her “holiday” only to give us a big Dhokha once again.

Dhoka Movie Rating : 2/5

Review Courtesy : Rajeev Masand | Ibnlive