Friday flicks: Potboilers return

AKSAR

Starring: Emraan Hashmi, Udita Goswami, Dino Morea

Director: Anant Mahadevan

Dino Morea, Udita Goswami and Emraan Hashmi star in this week's new release Aksar, which has been directed by Anant Mahadevan.

Now in the West, they have a name for these kind of films and this whole genre actually - they call them exploitation films.

Low-concept, low-budget thrillers with B-grade stars and lots of gratuitous sex and violence. Aksar fits that description perfectly.

Trapped in a loveless marriage with his trophy wife Udita Goswami, Dino Morea decides the best way to ensure a divorce is if he can prove she's been cheating on him.

So he hires playboy photographer Emraan Hashmi to seduce his wife so he can walk in on the two of them and demand a divorce from his wife on the grounds of infidelity.

Unfortunately, things don't quite go according to plan. Not only does wifey refuse to grant him a divorce, she also decides her lover will now live under the same roof as them.

But let's not forget that three is always a crowd.

You don't need to be the world's sharpest movie critic to point out that the film stinks because of its plot that's as flimsy as most of Udita Goswami's costumes.

Despite borrowing ideas generously from such Hollywood films as A Perfect Murder and Unfaithful, this film doesn't stand a chance in hell because it's so darn predictable that twenty minutes into the film, and you know exactly how it's going to turn out.

Of course the film rides largely on its sex scenes, which are unimaginative and mostly boring.

How many more such uninspired, simulated groping-fondling-and-sniffing routines are we going to have to suffer in the name of raw passion?

Is it just me or have you also noticed that sex scenes in Hindi movies look as mechanically choreographed as dance numbers?

So much so that you can predict exactly where his head is going to go next, which love handle of hers he's going to grope next, and when she's going to finally open her eyes and come up for air after a seemingly never-ending lip-lock.

Put some imagination into it, guys. Loosen up a little, and if you have to do it, do it right!

Dino Morea as the pipsqueak millionaire husband has one expression throughout the film and he holds on to it for dear life.

Udita Goswami as the psycho wife who's constantly destroying everything that's in sight, is such a poor actress that you want to personally fund acting classes for her.

And only because he's developed such natural ease playing these bed-hopping Casanova roles, does Emraan Hashmi come off as the most comfortable of the three actors.

Aksar is pointless and predictable and the only good thing about the film is that it's not too long - so just when it begins to really get on your nerves, it all comes to an end and the lights come back on.

That's two out of five and nothing to recommend in director Anant Mahadevan's strictly average Aksar.

Rating: (Average)

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MERE JEEVAN SAATHI

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Amisha Patel, Karisma Kapoor

Director: Suneel Darshan

Also, checking into cinemas this week is director Suneel Darshan's Mere Jeevan Saathi starring Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor and Amisha Patel.

It's an emotional love triangle that's been in the making and languishing in the cans for some six odd years.

Think about it: Karisma Kapoor got married, had a baby, had marital problems, then sorted them all out.

That's not all. Amisha Patel's mother plays her screen mum in this film.

Keeping in mind the fact that Amisha had a highly publicised falling out with her family some years ago, you can imagine exactly how old this film is.

And even that wouldn't really be a problem actually, if the film itself had some meat in it.

The PROBLEM is, the film itself -- the plot, the script and the theme is so outdated and cliched, that this one's a no-go from the very start.

Akshay Kumar is a popstar in the making with a supportive girlfriend in Amisha Patel.

His career skyrockets when an international record label signs him on. But there's more to it.

The record company is owned by Ms Moneybags Karisma Kapoor who's been nursing a crush on him since their college days.

She promises to make him the biggest star ever, and in the process she seduces him one night.

Guilty about betraying his girlfriend, Akshay decides to keep a safe distance from Karisma, but like a woman obsessed, she pursues him and makes his life a living hell.

Shamelessly ripped off from the Michael Douglas-Glenn Close thriller Fatal Attraction, the script of Mere Jeevan Saathi is as insipid as a week-old idli.

Add to that director Suneel Darshan's trademark melodramatic style, and what you have is a film that really tests your patience.

Amisha Patel hams like there's no tomorrow, Akshay Kumar changes more hairstyles than expressions.

And Karisma Kapoor -- God knows I miss her -- but this is hardly the last memory you want to have of her on screen.

Watching Mere Jeevan Saathi is as entertaining as watching paint dry.

So that's one out of five, and a warning to keep a safe, safe distance from director Suneel Darshan's Mere Jeevan Saathi, a blast from the past that should've stayed in the past.

Rating: (Poor)

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