Ankahee
Cast: Aftab Shivdasani, Amisha Patel, Esha Deol
Direction: Vikram Bhatt

Hey, a buncha women are about to lunch. But before they can munch, a tabloid announces a scandal story with punch. “How dare that man be unfaithful to his wife!” the women harrumph. It’s even suggested that a protest morcha should be initiated, making life bad for the cad. Mad?

Quite. Far too close to Mahesh Bhatt’s infinitely superior Arth with reported elements from writer-director Vikram Bhatt’s own private life, Ankahee is quite a gaga adultery saga. Far too lengthy, bullock cart-paced and sprinkling cliches like dandruff, the result takes 16 reels to state what could have been encapsulated in six. What a fix.
Some 16 years after her parents split, a young woman (Hrishita Bhatt, cosmeticised to the last eye-lash) reluctantly reaches the deathbed of her dad (Aftab Shivdasani).
Touchoak. He looks in the candy pink of health. Sulking as if he had been denied gulab jamuns for breakfast, daddyji dryly hands over a slim diary to his beti. She rapid reads it all night to discover daddy-o isn’t such a creep at all. Yeah sure.

Evidence indicates othervice. After eight years of a blissed-out marriage and a saucer-eyed kid, it seems doctor dad had succumbed to a fatal attraction. He had gone bonkers over a Miss World (Esha Deol) who’s lonely, “manic depressive” and hellishly hysterical. At a Goa beach resort, the doc and Miss Depressive had cuddled betwen silken sheets, and hadn’t even ordered room service.

Reporter Sarita (unseen alas) had exposed the affair. Naturally, the doc’s unbelievably servile wife (Amisha Patel) was majorly upset. Gloom.

The doc and his wife had split, and the “other woman” for no plausible reason had placed a gun to her forehead. Frankly, by now you’re feeling pretty suicidal yourself. Bang, bang, sob, sob, goodbye cruel world.

The wife’s confrontation with Miss World, dramatised behind a closed door, is about the only emotionally stirring moment. Also to an extent, the wife’s eventual stance of independence redeems the picture’s overall rank chauvinism. Ask yourself – did this story have to be re-re-told?

Visually, Vikram Bhatt plays it straight and dull almost as if were directing a TV soap opera. Pritam’s music is nothing to waltz about, and the editing is sleepier than a Sunday afternoon. The dialogue is loaded with more English language  than Wren and Martin.
Of the cast, Amisha Patel is the most appealing. At least, she exudes the syrup of human kindness convincingly. Esha Deol grapples as much with her thankless role as her styling.  The hopelessly miscast Aftab Shivdasani, in a suspiciously Vikram Bhatt dubbed voice, gives you the heebie jeebies. Unsolicited advice: save yourself from this Yawnkahee.


Aparichit
Cast: Vikram, Sada
Direction: Shankar

The Tamil blockbuster Anniyan (soup) dubbed into the Hindi Aparichit is essentially about a man who has a fetish for experimenting with his hair.

Bring on the wiggies then: a tight crow-black one for a blundering lawyer, a straw thatch for a disco deewana and an entire curly kingdom for a far-out killer wearing a Darth Vader robe.

Indeed, all the hair pieces belong to one gent (Vikram) who you must understand has a “multiple personality disorder.” A mouse by day, a Travolta by afternoon, a butcher by night, and goodness Gracias he really gets in and out of costumes faster than a ramp-walker. No malfunction mercifully.

Distinctly, this is yet one more example of director Shankar’s fetish with vigilante service seen before in his Gentleman and Indian. Hideous murders are performed, using boiling ghee, bloodsucking worms and stomping cattle. In fact, the lawyer’s romance with the cutie-next-door (Sada) is far more sufferable.

All the dancing formula tricks are employed ranging from a Yana Gupta boogie-do to a rustic farm stomper.

However, if you don’t completely regret the outing, it’s because of an absolutely smashing Kill Bill-style martial arts interlude. Wow.
And yeah, the Chennai superstar Vikram is hyper-energetic and often agreeable. The rest of this over-the-pot fantasy isn’t.

 

khalid@dnaindia.net