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“Humraaz” was the starting point of this latest trend and it got bolder with Anurag Basu’s “Murder”. Adhering to the conventions of Bollywood cinema, these conniving patnis realised that married life is not so bad after all and settled into it with smitten glee. Something that the Reena Roy of “Bezubaan” probably could identify with. However, I can imagine “Yakeen” giving her something of a heart attack! Watching “Yakeen” through fresh eyes is not really possible since it is a mish-mash of every marital thriller that you have come across. True to his form, Vikram Bhatt takes the plot from Wolfgang Peterson’s “Shattered” and credits himself for the story and screenplay. Arjun Rampal is Nikhil, a victim of a car accident. His wife, Simar (Priyanka Chopra) is also involved in the car accident but she escapes relatively unscathed. Maybe she was wearing her seatbelt. Nikhil was most likely not wearing one, which is why he is physically and mentally scarred (his memory is taken away into a box somewhere, getting ready for the moment when the time for the “twist” arrives).
If you’re unaware of the twist then this picture is very entertaining in a camp way. The first half moves along at a furious pace but it is the slow pace of the second half that lets the movie down. Too much is focused on Simar’s affair with Kabir as a way of showing us that she is not such a bad woman after all. It’s her gloomy marriage that made her what she is. Watching this film made me feel slightly dizzy what with the overcooked camerawork that likes to circle every angle and magnify every emotion. Blue and black are the favourite colours in this movie (either through clothes or lighting) and they are used as signifiers of deceit and betrayal. Yes yes, we get the message, something is not quite right. No need to keep hamming it home! Amar Mohile’s background score is deliciously foreboding as if to say “we’re all crazy and there’s nothing you can you do about it.”
Being gripped by the goings-on in “Yakeen” is akin to enjoying something that you shouldn’t. The large gaping holes in the plot just pile up but you carry on watching it due to the sheer fun of it. It’s the final twist in the story that takes the cake but this seems intelligent in comparison to the twist in the last thriller that I saw, Soni Razdan’s “Nazar”. Just don’t bother watching “Yakeen” twice (or more), as all the flaws will stand out in the second viewing. It’s best to just watch and enjoy once like a secret guilty pleasure.
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Abbas-Mustan’s “Humraaz” was playing on TV on the morning of the day that I decided to view Girish Dhamija’s “Yakeen”. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched “Humraaz” so I could see “Yakeen” through fresh eyes. But all the way through “Yakeen”, I kept thinking about how the role of the married woman in Hindi cinema has become so twisted. This year alone, we have had Vikram Bhatt’s “Jurm” and Satish Kaushik’s “Vaada” where married women unintentionally or intentionally played with the feelings of their adoring but suspicious husbands.
Physically recovered, Nikhil gets ready to enjoy wedded bliss but something is holding him back from being happy. The palmist with a pout, Tanya (Kim Sharma) helpfully tells the amnesiac that he had phoned her before the accident with some evidence regarding his wife. The two along with the useless detective (Saurabh Shukla) conspire to follow Simar’s every action and indeed she does give them a merry chase, leading them from mountain to mountain. And the intent of this one long trip was to just make a phone call. It seems that she was having an affair with some guy called Kabir. But he is nowhere to be found and he is the missing part of the puzzle.
Priyanka Chopra succeeds in breathing life to an unlikeable and confused character. It’s a very difficult role to do but then Chopra has experience from doing a similar character in Abbas-Mustan’s “Aitraaz”.
Arjun Rampal is good too but I feel that he is becoming typecast in these roles where he has shades of grey or is betrayed by someone else. It must be something to do with those eyes that convey a cold vulnerability. I am surprised at the short length of Kim Sharma’s role considering that she featured so heavily in the promos. Her character disappears before she even has a chance to do anything. Sudhanshu Pandey as Kabir is okey-dokey in a significant role.