Review : Bewafaa

When I sat down to see this film, I had a sketchy version of the story. I mean, most Hindi movies run on certain standard formulas, therefore forged ahead thinking, “How bad can it get ?”. Apparently very bad. Hence have no qualms about giving this the first negative numerical rating (-5/5) of the year. In short, this movie is a POUC (piece of unadulterated crap). Unless under duress of death or grievious bodily injury, do not attempt to see. Now for your general knowledge, here is the gist of it :Anjali (Kareena) is a Canadian, living with her parents (Bedi and Ali). She is in love with Raja (Akshay), an aspiring musician, but afraid of telling her parents, hence meets him in secret. Anjali’s pregnant didi Aarti (Sushmita) arrives from Delhi to be with her mom during her pregnancy. As she learns about Anjali’s secret romance, she is delighted to meet Raja and assures Anjali that she will convince the parents about Raja. Unfortunately, Aarti dies during childbirth, after delivering twin daughters.

Husband Aditya (Anil Kapoor) arriving for the birth finds his wife dead and is bereft. This is when the parents use their acute intelligence and decide that Kareena will be the perfect mom for the motherless kids. Kareena agrees, marries Aditya and flies off to Delhi, without a word to Raja. She devotes her life to be a mom and wife, but is unable to draw Aditya any closer. So after 3 years of the cold treatment from her husband, when she spies Raja in Delhi, and is pursued by him, she is tempted ….

This movie combines bad acting, an atrocious script, unrealistic situations, hard-to-sit-through dialogues, and incoherent reasoning into one solidly pathetic film. Darshan, through this one film, flaunts his total lack of vision. Anil Kapoor comes into his own as a pure-bred MCP (male chauvinist pig) in the first half of the movie. After the intermission he magically morphs into caring husband and grows a funny bone (its kind of like a bunion). Also meets, per chance, the friends from hell (Manoj Bajpai and Shamita shetty as a gruesome twosome). Bajpai as Aditya’s friend Dil Arora is surreally bad here, and the less seen and said about Ms. Shetty the better.

Akshay Kumar appears with a goatee in the first half (well… all aspiring musicians have goatees, you know). His acting is as always; wooden. Kareena, romances, sings and cries her way through the movie, and none too well at that. Kabir Bedi and Nafisa Ali, are pretty unbearable as the hymn-chanting placid parents. Sushmita Sen is adequate in her teeny-tiny role.

The film flows with one incongruity slapped upon another. Besides which, the director adds to the mix, the jaded old formula of selfless Bhartiya (or Canadian) nari. Music is decent. However, this film is exquisite torture. Inflict it with care.