The one marginally tingling, bizarre moment in Hate Story 3 appears right after the interval. It involves a man, a woman, some kissing and more. Describing the “more” would be giving away a plot point but suffice to say that it adds just a little dash of life to the largely cold, limp film which promises to be an erotic thriller. Co-written by the genre specialist Vikram Bhatt it has bikini bods, kisses, sex and exploitative camera angles aplenty. However, while the “adult” genre gets a “good opening” and mainstream acceptance yet again with the third of the erotica franchisee, the fact that you do find audience around you giggling and laughing at crucial scenes, should be worrisome for a series that actually wants to titillate and tease forever. Barely any intensity and passion here save a song which leaves nothing to imagination with lyrics like ‘Aaj dikha de mujhe love kar ke’.
Things get way too predictable with twists and turns that are a yawn. The dialogue is cringeworthy with archaic gems like “ Kab tak bekasoor auraton ke aanchal ke peeche chhupta rahega ” (How long will you hide behind an innocent woman). If you were to take the film seriously then women sssswho possess brains along with beauty are dangerous. The plot, incidentally, is Maggi-inspired. How? Well you have an industrialist Aditya Dewan (Sharman) forced to pull out the stock of his brand of cold drink from the market because of it being poisonous. The man behind this sabotage and more troubles ahead is Saurabh Singhania (Karan) who also makes the indecent proposal of sleeping with Aditya’s wife Siya (Zarine) for a night. In the corporate war, the game of one upmanship and revenge drama that ensues between these two men, women are the obvious pawns and tension is built on such banal things like copying of the sim card data. In the name of topicality there is also a telecom scam brewing somewhere in the background.
Sharman is earnest but his face looks sadly gaunt throughout the film. Zarine sports duck lips that make her look more like Nargis Fakhri than Katrina Kaif (who she is supposed to resemble as per Salman Khan). She delivers the sanest of advice to her husband in the most expressionless way possible. No wonder the two of them are so cold together on screen that they could instantly turn water into ice . TV turned film actor Karan is perennially self aware and preening with hair styled into a ridiculous puff. No, certainly not the Dev Anand or Gregory Peck kinds. Daisy starts off by sporting a painful, knit-eyebrows look and then it’s only left to her to turn the heat on with her “boldness” and oomph and midriff and legs. Fittingly she is called Kaya (body). And this poor body also has to keep getting wet, now in the shower and next minute in the pool. But eventually even she is reigned in, dunno why.
Revenge could not have been served more cold. And stale.