Market Review

After Chandini Bar, films on women exploitation have become a fad. Filmmakers have somehow come to the conclusion that the weaker-sex exploitation is a zero sum game and can be ended only if men do their bit. So now it's time for them to do some damage control.

Unfortunately, with George Bush still around, the case to support men is indeed a bit weak. However, that has not stopped them from putting their best foot forward (in a purely non-fetish manner) and portraying their worthy solutions to this cancerous practice. 'Cancerous practice' here refers to the overconfident belief that men can solve everything. About women exploitation, well, men exploit that situation too, trying to make a quick buck by churning out scum like this.

Manisha Koirala is close-lined into the dungeons of body trade by the artifice of a sheikh, making an unholy living in the murky alleys of our old city. The first half has about this much of a storyline. Apart from this, the following was also noticed:

a. The residents of our old city in the film speak in a language that alternates between Pali, Latin and frantic traffic police signals. The filmmakers call it Telugu.
b. Making serious cinema necessarily means casting actors that make us wonder what came first - man or ape? (Ha ha, let me laugh, because that's the only way I can convey the comic potential in that wet joke.)
c. Manisha Koirala has increasingly become unfit since her previous venture. To be frank, it's her belt that has become unfit. Her buckle no longer fits into the hole assigned, and she's fast running out of holes. At the rate at which she's growing, she'll soon have heavenly bodies orbiting around her.
d. The guy sitting in the next seat is pulling his hair by both fists to recollect what it was that he was smoking when he wandered into this movie thinking it would be a good way to kill time.
e. Being a streetwalker does not mean having a stagnant job status. You get promoted to Mumbai, and if you're lucky, you can even end up in Dubai. But if you're really lucky, you can end up in politics. Okay, maybe this has gone bit too far - even streetwalkers have souls!

So from the clumsy gullies of an old city to the jazzy sports cars in Dubai, the journey of Manisha Koirala is quite a story. If you like B-grade lewd dialogues and outright vulgar and offensive rubbish that is.

A Mumbai broker moulds Manisha into a classy lady just like the ones in a Jackie Collins book, and viola, she's in Dubai with the Underworld's kingpin. With his aid she avenges her loss by killing that Sheikh that had first introduced her to this hell. Somewhere in between appear Aryan, Suman Ranganathan and Shwetha Menon. You'd notice them, they're on the screen for 1 full minute. Incidentally, that happens to be the exact amount of time you would be awake.

This flick is Manisha's 2nd desperate try to get an award. She did Ek Chhotisi Love Story which was clearly soft porn, and this one is an offensive orgy of perversion. If you want an award you need to know what not to sign, not what to sign. But until some actresses understand that, the masses need to suffer through such assaults on ocular senses. Of course, when I say masses I'm not referring only to Manisha but to the general populace.