Kasoor Review

There are very few moments in a reviewer's career when he sees a director falter all through, mess up his priorities and come up with a cropper of a movie, and still empathize (not sympathize) with the guy. Reviewing Kasoor has brought me one. I share Vikram Bhatt's dilemma in choosing between concentrating on the film's plot and on Lisa Ray. And although my obvious choice should be the former, I cannot help it if it is non-existent.

I am not complaining when I say that the movie looks like an amalgamation of various ad campaigns and music videos that Lisa has done. Oh, but what would one give to get a guy to teach her NOT to smile. When she sleeps she smiles, when she wakes she smiles, when she is shocked she smiles, when she is angry she smiles, when she is puzzled she smiles, when she is crying she smiles... It wouldn't be much to say that she can't laugh. But she has such 'talent' that one finds it hard to recall any other character of the movie and say that it was significant. Hey, but I got a job to do.

I will start with Simran, played by Lisa of course, who is a fledgling corporate attorney in our country where copyright is understood as 'the right to copy'. She is called upon to defend a prominent journalist, Shekhar Saxena (Aftab Shivdasani), who has been accused of murdering his wife, who owned the publication. It turns out that Simran had been a criminal lawyer, but one wrongful case and she was through with it. She gives in, anyway. This part of the screenplay takes about ten minutes and it stays here for the next 90 minutes wherein the only development is that the two fall in love.

At the other end is a cop (Ashutosh Rana) with whom Simran had earlier fallen out and who is now inexplicably obsessed with prosecuting Shekhar. The next half of the movie is spent in the court, and it would be difficult to resist the temptation of guessing who wins. So when Shekhar walks away with her, the director finds that he's exhausted the reel length without even trying to solve the murder, and there isn't anyone to show for it. He starts right at the beginning, only there is no law this time around (that's the twist and you are not supposed to get it here).

It is bad enough that the movie looks like an extended ad, but the Bhatts don't stop at that. For the only scene that qualifies the movie as a thriller, or a movie to begin with, has been brazenly lifted from the so recent What Lies Beneath - quite uninspired in itself.

As for the performances, Aftab didn't have any misgivings of his efforts getting noticed, so he didn't try. That makes the duo one set of mannequins, especially when they are looking through the car's windshield. By the way, there's Ashutosh Rana who is trying to be another Sadashiv Amrapurkar and one Apurva something constantly smoldering the background.

Finally, with all apologies to the quake victims, I have hit upon an idea of a fund to raise money to make Lisa a real lawyer. How one would like to be accused of murder when one knows that she's going to be around! Donate generously!