Black, white and question mark. Review on Aitraaz

What happens when you put together three protagonists : Sultry seductress, Sati Savitri and Man Victim ? Aitraaz. A modern day fairy tale.

Man Victim (Akshay Kumar)meets Sati Savitri (Kareena Kapoor),falls in love, gets married. Enter Sultry Seductress (Priyanka Chopra)? his girlfriend of yesteryears who is now his boss? wife. Man Victim goes around shame-faced and wears the ?I am married now. I am a sata savitra now? look.

But the seductress has other ideas - she wants to get back together with Man Victim. She tries to seduce him, almost succeeds but eventually fails ? why ? Because Man Victim wears a chain in his neck which carries the snap of Sati Savitri and has a tendency to come dangling out, and remind him of his duties.

So Man Victim goes running back home only to discover that his job is finito, courtesy sultry seductress. Just when Man Victim is about to break down, enter Sati Savitri who, pulls out her dusty law books, works hard and gets his job back. The Man Victim and Sati Savitri live happily ever after. Sultry Seductress takes a dive in the sky and dies conveniently.

The story has been adapted from ?Disclosure? and conveniently changed in the end just for that ?Bollywood? twist. While in Disclosure, we had the man fighting on his own, here we have him literally being rescued by his wife.

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Performances :

Akshay Kumar :Frankly, his character is weak and sappy, a man who chooses to keep his past a secret from his wife, a man who is almost seduced by a determined woman easily and a man who is not able to tide through the crisis without the aid of several strong characters.He is simply perfect for this ?duh? role. He has to look bewildered, puzzled and shame faced alternately ? He manages to pull through this one with ease.

Priyanka Chopra :A woman who aborts her baby because her pregnancy may hamper her career, a woman who gives up true love for her ambitions and a woman who can get a man fired from his job just because he refuses to sleep with her.She is an example of the perfect casting too. She looks seductive and evil, a little confused but still, a negative character through and through.

Kareena Kapoor :A woman who fights for her man and eventually goes home with her prize ? her man of course !That?s all. There is nothing more to her character. Maybe a couple of songs here and there. Kareena is no Rani Mukherjee ? so one can?t expect her doing a Saamiya Siddaqui here, yet, Kareena does not disappoint in the courtroom scenes.

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Direction and music :Direction (Abbas Mastan) is good and that is what makes this movie immensely watchable. It is fast paced and racy, except for some irritating songs which can get on your nerves sometime. The courtroom scenes are brilliant and will keep you wondering 'What next ?' The music (Himesh Reshammaiya) is average, the only song worth mentioning being ?Aankhen band kar ke?. I do feel that there was no need for songs in this movie - they break the pace and divert the viewer's attention.

I was a amused to note ---

The two women characters are black and white with nothing like ?grey?. It?s an over-simplified view of human psycheand hence it moves smoothly with no question marks. As usual, the bad womanpursues a career, looks seductive and uses men to get ahead. The good womangives up her career, takes up work only to save her man and quite obviously has no past like her husband does.

Though the man?s transgressions are forgiven easily, the woman who transgresses has to take the only route left for her ? death and that too by suicide.

The ?good? woman gets the ultimate prize in the end ? the man who chose not to trust her with his shady past (he was about to have a baby with his past girlfriend !)and told her everything only when he had no other choice !! The question is : Is such a man trustworthy ? No ! (according to me)