Disappointing!. Review on Awarapan

The Bhatt camp knows that their movies have a very limited following. While it is true that every once in a while they deliver a major hit such as a RAAZ or a KASOOR, the fact is that these hits are some of the better Hollywood "inspirations" the Bhatts make along with a big bunch of disappointing "inspirations". With novelty being something the Bhatt camp lacks big time, they try to revive a dull period in their careers with a novel idea - human trafficking - for which they claim to have the biggest spending they have done in recent times. AWARAPAN, a story that presents this idea as its backdrop, does not do much to help the sinking status of the Bhatt camp as it is nothing more than a series of events(some of them that hardly make sense) that fail to deliver the message.

AWARAPAN is the story of Shivam(Emraan), a gangster who works in Hong Kong with a gang whose leader is Malik(Ashutosh Rana). Malik's business of human trafficking lands him a Pakistani girl named Reema(Mrinalini) who he begins to feel for. However, he suspects her of having someone else in her life. He assigns Shivam the task to discover whether his suspicion is true or not. Shivam discovers the presence of a guy named Bilal in the life of this girl. When Malik knows about it, he orders Shivam to kill her. However, in memory of his lost love(Shriya Saran) who had always taught him to free human beings of any sort of trap, Shivam helps Reema and Bilal escape to Pakistan, in the process giving his life for the purpose of uniting these lovers.

Honestly, on paper AWARAPAN sounds better than it has been executed on screen. A lot of people feel Mohit Suri has done a great job as a director, but it seems that he is getting more credit than he should for his execution of the subject. It is the script that is not only novel, but also thrilling. Had Mohit been more realistic in his presentation, the impact would have been much better. For instance, when Shivam meets Reema for the first time, she is presented as if it makes no difference to her to be a slave - she is out celebrating with people and dancing to the unwanted "Mahiya" number. Also, how come she suddenly opens up to Shivam, a guy she has hardly known. When she wants a religious object and needs a guy to get inside the mosque and get it for her, why does she ask Shivam for this favour rather than asking one of those "friends" she was dancing with throughout in the "Mahiya" song.

In addition,  the climax is not only predictable, but far from realistic. It is very monotonous now that the hero escapes a million bullets to help the heroine escape and as soon as she has escaped, one of those bullets hits the hero out of nowhere. Agreed that Shivam's character had to die, but couldn't Mohit have thought of a better and more satisfactory way. Talking about satisfaction, only a few sequences are executed in an up-to-the-mark fashion. For instance Emraan's reunion with his friend in the pre-climax is very well done, as is Emraan killing Ashish Vidhyarti and then his son before arriving on the scene to save Reema. The proceedings here in the pre-climax are very pacy and the screenplay is only boosted by the presence of "Tera Mera Rishta" song in the background. Other than this pre-climax portion, however, there is not much to look forward to in the entire movie. The start is slow, the intermission point is not thrilling at all, and the climax is extremely hard to believe.

With Mohit Suri not impressing that much as a storyteller, there are still other technicians in the movie that deserve credit. The cinematography is superb, with Hong Kong being captured in a brilliant way. The music, provided by a trio of Pakistani artists, suits the mood of the movie though "Mahiya" has to be edited out of the screenplay to help the movie's pace. That means the editing is just average while the action sequences are very hard to believe for a movie that was supposed to have a realistic feel to it throughout.

Performances are quite clearly the saving grace of AWARAPAN. The one thing Mohit Suri has got right is that he has worked hard to generate realistic and controlled performances from the entire starcast. While Ashutosh Rana had to make a powerful return, Emraan's career was riding on the movie as well. Shriya and Mrinalini needed good  presentations at this early stage of their careers as well. Therefore the pressure was on Suri and at least this is one area where he has succeeded.

If AWARAPAN makes a statement about anything other than the wrongness of the human trafficking issue, it is about Emraan Hashmi the performer. Till date Hashmi was given limited challenges as an actor and was more of a "kissing hero" than a serious performer. However, with AWARAPAN, Emraan reaches out to an audience he has not reached before - the classes. While he has little to do than remaining silent and wearing a wooden expression of anger in the initial parts of the movie, he gradually develops into an excellent performer over the duration of the movie. By the later stages of the movie, he emerges a victorious performer with the entire audience's sympathy with him. His expressions when he walks in to save Reema at the end are just brilliant. On the whole, a performance that should change the image of Emraan from a "serial kisser" to that of a "serious performer".

Ashutosh Rana is brilliant too, though he suffers from poor characterization. It is hard to believe that a human trafficking king all of a sudden falls for a girl he brought as a slave from Pakistan. It reminds of the poorly handled Ashmit Patel-Geeta Basra love angle in DIL DIYA HAI. On the whole, however, Ashutosh makes a powerful return with a very controlled performance. Both the leading ladies do justice to their parts and whoever has worked on their diction and dialogue delivery deserves credit. Television VJ Salil makes his debut with this film and while he is effective in the basic sequences as a villain, he needs to work harder in the more dramatic sequences. Ashish Vidhyarti is wasted and so is the character of his son in the movie. The actor playing Emraan's friend shows his versatility here in a positive role after playing a negative character in Bhatts' previous disaster WOH LAMHE.

On the whole, AWARAPAN is a disappointing product with little to look forward to. While the script had the potential to be made into a thrilling movie, Mohit Suri makes a confusing mess of it by trying to make it realistic(slow mood of the movie) and commercial(hard to believe climax and monotonous direction) at the same time. While the great performance of Emraan as an actor and Mustafa Zahid as a singer has failed to make it a success story in India, it is doing average business in UK and has a chance of survival through a release in Pakistan.