Genre: Erotic Thriller
Director: Vivek Agnihotri
Cast: Paoli Dam, Gulshan Devaiah, Nikhil Dwivedi, Bhairavi Goswami
Storyline: A victimised journalist decides to use her body to avenge the loss of her motherhood and bring down a business empire
Bottomline: As dirty a picture as allowed on Indian screens strictly only for those who liked the trailer
After an expose of a corporate scam, a corrupt and powerful industrialist villain decides to get even with the journalist by screwing her over till she decides to do a different kind of an… er… expose.
To be honest, this is a much more compelling plot for an erotic film than the half-baked Dirty Picture that fizzled out on its promise of “Dirty-ness” halfway through. Unfortunately for Hate Story, the makers don’t have a Vidya Balan or Naseeruddin Shah to make people pretend they are watching a classy film.
Very rarely do we have actresses willing to strip down for a role and when a newbie does it, she’s not classy? How is Paoli Dam any less a committed actress than Vidya Balan?
Hate Story, despite it’s so-bad-that-it’s-good entertainment factor, is not for hypocrites. It’s for those willing to surrender to the cheesiness of the B-movie genre.
If you choose to go for it after watching the trailer, at least don’t complain about its sensibilities.
It’s an erotic thriller, what did you expect?
So, does Hate Story offer the Dirty Picture promise of “Entertainment, Entertainment and Entertainment?” “Yes, Yes… Oh Yes!”
If your idea of entertainment is watching the actors struggling to get their expressions right.
Gulshan Devaiah, who is a pretty decent actor when he has to play it straight, is a fish out of water when he’s asked to play it over the top and stammer Bollywood style. His facial contortions are great entertainment.
The gorgeous, brave Paoli Dam, who is totally comfortable when she has to play the regular girl, finds herself reduced to a caricature when she’s asked to venture into the loud, screaming territory. Her excuses for seduction are great entertainment.
The writing is a hoot. The campiness of the dialogue is great entertainment. Q: “How do I have sex with people I hate?” A: “Shake it, take it and fake it.”
It’s difficult to take the revenge part of the film seriously though.
Because if you were to look at what all happened through the eyes of the villain… “Hang on, not only did I get to sleep with a smoking hot woman, she decides to get back at us by sleeping with my top management and is thoughtful enough to stream her sex videos live to my entire team. Sweet! And, she saves me from suicide! Well-played.”
But then, what’s the point of making an erotic film if all the best parts are shown only to the Censors and a only tamer version makes it to the screen?
We can only hope the makers release an unrated version on the internet.
MADRAS INK. 
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