Haseen Dilruba - Movie Review


 Haseen Dilruba : Movie Review


One of the awaited OTT releases of 2021, Haseen Dilruba was finally aired by Netflix on 2nd July. The movie has been widely touted as a murder mystery, edge of the seat suspense thriller and fans of this genre have been eagerly awaiting its release.

So as usual, the judgement before the review.

YZen says : Save yourself 5 mins & don’t even waste time in reading a review of a movie, as despairing as this. Do your most hated task for 2 hours, instead of watching this flick & you will still end up being on the happier side.

Word of caution : Despite the warnings, if you do feel desperate enough to watch this film, make sure that there are no objects around you, that you can fling at the TV.

(Tangent thought : Come to think of it, Hindi cinema has never been able to really throw up good movies in this genre. Only a very select few, come to mind.)

The movie starts with a blast, literally! There is an explosion right in the first few seconds of the film & you brace yourself, in anticipation of a rollicking murder mystery. The entire house is blown to smithers, as Rani (Tapsee) is nonchalantly feeding the dogs out on the street. Apparently, Rani’s husband, Rishu (Vikrant Massey) is killed in the blast & what is left of his body is just a hand, conveniently, severed neatly at the forearm with a clear tattoo ‘RANI’. This, by itself, defies logic so much that, I should have switched the channel then itself. Against my better judgement, I let myself be tortured for the next 2 hours.

The first thirty minutes are tolerable due to comic interludes when Rishu & family go in for an arranged marriage proposal to Rani’s home. Rishu has been funnily rejected once before in an arranged marriage scenario while Rani, has had a couple of boyfriends before, but has to settle for an arranged marriage & she settles for the ‘best amongst the worst’. The bold, brash, outspoken girl from Delhi v/s a soft spoken, shy, demure Rishu, from a small town of Jwalapur, has all the elements of a comedy movie but sadly, no ingredients for a murder mystery. Rani’s dialogues like “Guys in arranged marriage have it easy, they don’t have to do the hard work to patao a girl, as in a love marriage & hence these guys don’t appreciate their wife in arranged marriage” or “You have got a great combo offer in me, beauty with brains and a hot body” , are funny in the context & due to panache in dialogue delivery by Tapsee. Post that, the whole story is an a freefall down to the abyss !

Rani is the prime suspect in her husband’s murder & she is summoned by the inspector (Aditya Srivastava of Sony’s CID fame). He is so much better in CID & I wish him a long career there. Why Rani has to tell her story to the inspector, take a lie detector test to prove her innocence, have no lawyer representation etc, even when she is not arrested, is beyond the scope of the story & out of syllabus questions. Rani had envisioned for a husband with a 5-point criteria & Rishu has none of those. In walks in Rishu’s cousin, Neel (Harshvardhan Rane). If there is a course on how to waste a good short role in a film, watch Neel. Except for his bulging biceps, he has no charm or appeal. Yet, Tapsee falls for him. Her emotions, conflict or lack of it, is completely ignored. Love, lust, passion, attention or pure pass time are emotions that are not even considered. Neel walks into the story and just as simply, he walks out of Rani’s life. Tapsee’s character is such that she carries only 2 or 3 expressions throughout the movie. Whether it is her extra marital affair with Neel or confiding to Rishu about it, is the same dead pan face. Only saving grace is Vikrant Massey who tries to salvage something for himself, out of whole nonsensical narrative. Rani’s in-laws & her mom who were integral part of her life & the story, before the murder, suddenly go missing from the script.

The screenplay is pathetic & the plot of the story is even worse. There is no logic, nor any relevance to any of the scenes. It’s a complete mish mash of random thoughts under the guise of a mystery story. The climatic end is where the director & writer completely lose their mind and really insult our intelligence. The way the movie ends & the mystery is “solved” is even more bizarre !

Watch out for some funny interactions between Rani & her MIL.

YZen says : Strongly recommend this movie to someone whom you wanna get back at. If the person watches it, you have had your revenge !

Rating : 1.5 out of 5.

1 for Vikrant (Rishu) & 0.5 for Tapsee – simply coz of her previous films & not this one. If I develop, a negative marking system, this movie would be way below the freezing 0 degrees ! 

Comments

  1. Pravin4 July 2021 at 05:19

    Thanks for saving me from watching it. A true friend ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown4 July 2021 at 05:56

    Thank you for your timely advice and saving me from torture.

    ReplyDelete

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