Kasoor

No ray of hope

Vishesh Entertainment Ltd.’s Kasoor begins interestingly even though the idea has been lifted from a Hollywood flick, Jagged Edge, but soon loses its grip because of some very ordinary performances and a screenplay that crawls along at a snail’s pace. Copying is an art and director Vikram Bhatt has obviously not perfected the art of copying.

The film begins with the arrest of Shekhar Saxena (Aftab Shivdasani), the editor of a newspaper for the murder of his wife. Police officer Lokhande (Ashutosh Rana) who’s peeved with Shekhar for a couple of editorials he has written against the police and their ineffectual role in tackling crime, has already decided that the husband is guilty. But Shekhar manages to get bail and an eminent crimal lawyer, Simran (Lisa Ray) to defend him. Simran soon falls under the charm of the media baron. Her steady boyfriend Amit (Aporrva Agnihotri) can only watch helplessly as Simran gets more and more entangled with Shekhar (Pun intended).
However, while cross examining witnesses, Simran discovers that Shekhar is not as innocent as he claims. She feels cheated and is all set to dump her Cassanova client. But Amit persuades her to try out the case and she manges to get Shekhar off the hook.

The trial is over but Simran can’t forget Shekhar or the case. She continues burrowing nad manages to unearthen strong evidence that point an accusing figer in Shekhar’s direction. When the tycoon realises that his game is up he tries to kill Simran and in self-defence she butchers the man whom she saved from the gallows.

It’s an interesting tale of tales but the key characters fail to deliver. Aftab is good in parts but his performance is not consistent. Lisa Ray despite her drop-dead good looks makes an unimpressive debut even with a dream role. She’s completely expressionless and needs to work very hard on her dialogue delivery. Apurva Agnihotri tries hard to play his role with some conviction. Ashutosh Rana does a good job in the first half but is a mere spectator in the second. Only Irfan Khan is impressive in a brief role.

Director Vikram Bhatt obviously had a lot of confidence in a team of relative newcomers but they have let him down. He doesn’t get much help from the story and screenplay department either. May be he should have made the film more taut and short instead of riddling the plot with not-needed songs. Nadeem-Shravan’s score anyway fails to lift the spirits.

Padmaraj Nair
raajnair99@hotmail.com

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