|  Hawas
Movie Review
Off Meghna Naidu goes in search of lust and adventure
on the streets of Dubai where she conveniently runs
into ramp-walker Tarun Arora who offers her medicine
for a scratched knee and then antidote for her other
wound -
boredom because of a workaholic husband.
With dumb and dumber both in her bed now, Meghna has
nowhere to go except down.
Delineating the lustful downfall of a bored housewife,
"Hawas" falls to its knees and stays there
cringing and moaning for attention. Alas, the hot subject
and the promise of a dirty picture-show fall as flat
as they did in the other recent films like "Oops"
and "Tum".
The problem with this salacious stab at the theme of
adultery is so deep-rooted that you don't know whether
to laugh or cry, as director Karan Razdan attempts to
frame the housewife as a wanton lust seeker and victim.
In both capacities, Meghna fails miserably.
As for her two amorous interests, what were the film's
makers thinking while signing them on? It's hard to
say anything that isn't unkind or about the male stars.
Shawar Ali as the wronged husband looks scruffy, gawky
and plainly unfit for stardom. As for Tarun Arora, if
you've seen Olivier Martinez seduce Diane Lane in Adriane
Lyne's "Unfaithful", you'll perhaps forgive
Tarun's performance as a grotesque parody of the original.
For those who haven't seen the original, there's news.
"Hawas" copies
not just the basic idea but also individual sequences,
including that notorious chunk of cheesy voyeurism where
the adulterous wife, while in a café with her
friends, takes a break from coffee for a bit of raunchy
sex with her toy-boy in the loo.
While Diane Lane and Martinez looked ravishing doing
their raunchy ride, Meghna and Tarun behave as though
they're locked together on a treadmill that's gone amok.
A mockery of every aesthetic rule in the book of filmmaking,
"Hawas" stuns you senseless with its absurdities.
Too clumsy to be taken seriously as a study of female
infidelity and too puny to qualify as porn, "Hawas"
is nothing but an unintended joke packaged in a flavourless
sleaziness.
The film leaves you with a bad taste, like chewing gum
that's been left in the mouth for too long. Apart from
the three main players in the pathetic passion play
not a single character is developed in the plot.
Once the lover is eliminated by the husband - exactly
like Richard Gere did in the original - the director
puts his leading lady in a black sari to do a full-blown
martyr's act.
Did she enjoy the purple nights with the assassinated
lover-boy? Of course not! Nice Indian housewives don't
even think about such things!
"Hawas" is a nightmare. Do yourself a big
favour. Watch Meghna Naidu in the "Kaliyon ka chaman"
music video remix. And then watch Diane Lane in "Unfaithful".
And please save yourself the trouble of watching the
re-mix queen getting mixed up with a subject that she,
and her director, are incapable of handling.
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