The visionary director Sudhir Mishra’s filmography can easily be divided into two parts where in the first he gave us some worth watching masterpieces like YEH WOH MANZIL TO NAHIN (1987), MAIN ZINDA HUN (1988), DHARAVI (1992), IS RAAT KI SUBAH NAHIN (1996) and HAZARON KHWAISHEN AISI (2003) which are widely included in the list of cult classics of Hindi Cinema by the lovers of meaningful films. But then in his second innings, the director delivered many half baked kind of projects such as CHAMELI (2003), KHOYA KHOYA CHAND (2007), TERA KYA HOGA JOHNY (2009) and YEH SAALI ZINDAGI (2011) in which “Tera Kya Hoga Johny” somehow also got leaked over the net even before its official release. So keeping in mind the track record of Sudhir Mishra, I had my doubts about INKAAR, despite of seeing some interesting promos released by its marketing team. Yet the excitement to watch both Chitrangda & Arjun Rampal together in the lead roles was strongly there and I also wished to see Sudhir back in form once again like a true fan.
As a pleasant surprise, the film started off on an interesting offbeat note but within the next 40 minutes it was pretty clear that the director repeatedly has made a mediocre product which unsuccessfully tries to maintain a difficult balance between commercial & artistic cinema exactly like his last few attempts, which failed to make an impact on the viewers. Hindi Cinema has already seen few good films on this subject of “Sexual Harassment at the workplace” lead by the successful AITRAAZ (2004) by Abbas Mustan, which was actually an unofficial version of English hit DISCLOSURE (1994). The sensitive issue was also touched by Madhur Bhandarkar in his CORPORATE (2006) and by Basu Chatterjee too in his SHEESHA made in 1986. So the key was not only the potential plot but its innovative execution by the veteran director which could have win over the viewers with its fine blend of love, sex and sarcastic humor.
Unfortunately, Sudhir Mishra fails to portray these three important aspects of the subject in his uneven script or direction impressively. Due to which INKAAR can easily be called a tiring, repetitive and uninteresting venture giving you much less in return of your expectations. No doubt, the film begins well on a different note, straight away coming to the topic, following a new path with a jury judging the complaint filed by Chitrangda. But as it progresses, the whole excitement around the case simply vanishes off because of its weak writing, many silly characters (particularly the office colleagues) and all predictable developments in its storyline. In fact, this was one of those movies which forced me to check the watch repeatedly to see that why they are not declaring the interval?
The film is unable to make any kind of long lasting impact mainly because of the confusion between its ‘Harassment’ plot and the love story developing quietly among its lead characters. Basically revolving around the ego clashes only, its climax makes you wonder that if there was such a strong undercurrent of love hidden in Chitrangda’s heart then for what actually she had filed the complaint against Arjun? Moreover, at times its really hard to believe that its a Sudhir Mishra film when you are shown a melodramatic father teaching his kid in the flashback, a mother whispering a strange suggestion in her daughter’s ears, Saurabh Shukla playing a weird singer in a song and a track with lyrics “Maula Tu Maalik Hai, Allah Tu Maalik Hai” running in the background of an intense bed-room scene? So with such an uninspiring writing INKAAR completely fails to take advantage of both Chitrangda and Arjun who indeed perform well in their complex roles, much better than their previous films.
Arjun Rampal gives a fine performance as the victim ahead than Chitrangda who plays the sensuous, ambitious and wicked lady blaming Arjun. She looks gorgeous on the screen in the first hour of the film. But post that the beauty somehow loses its charm may be because of too many close ups opted by the cinematographer. Deepti Naval as the neutral judge is a complete natural but among the supporting cast actors such as Vipin Sharma and Kawaljit Singh remain wasted. Musically it has nothing great to offer and the same can be said about its background score too which is unable to create any excitement.
Ending on an honest note, I would like to mention that if a film is strongly promoted as a project talking about ‘Sexual Harassment” then it frankly creates some obvious expectations in the viewer’s mind related with sex and exciting verbal arguments between its key characters. But INKAAR neither satisfies the Male Ego with its fiery scenes or advancements nor pacifies the Female Ego with some well written scenes justifying her awkward position. As a result, it simply remains a confused film caught between its two plots of harassment and love which actually serve no specific purpose at all. Therefore you can easily skip it in the theaters and watch it as it gets released in the home video market.
Rating : 2 / 5
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