One Man Show

CAN HRITHIK act? No question about it. Can Hrithik hack it, in Kaabil, a film that gives him every opportunity to gain lost ground? That's a toughie. Because apart from the leading man, there is not one thing to keep us with the film.

Two strands knit Kaabil. One is the romance between two visually impaired people. Rohan (Roshan) and Supriya (Gautam) meet on a blind date, dreadful pun fully intended, and discover feelings that will last a lifetime. Except, the well-laid plans and mice and men thing happens, and things go horribly wrong.

The other track is rape-and-revenge, a combo not seen for a while in big budget Bollywood with their pretty, safe love stories. Kaabil dusts it off and resurrects it, but brings back every single cliche that goes with the territory: lascivious hoods, intimidating netas, and cops on the take.

The challenge with doing a film whose beats are stacked from its opening frame, is to insert surprise. Instead, Kaabil plays it strictly by the numbers, and you can see everything coming from a mile.

Yami Gautam's act includes a permanent unblinking wide-eyed stare. She is light on her feet but seems to have got caught in a series of no account roles after Vicky Donor. Rohit and Ronit Roy are the baddies, and both come off as they have been instructed to: the former is a mohalle ka goonda, the latter a grim, glowering local heavyweight.

After Ugly, Kulkarni seems destined to do quirky cops. And Jha plays a senior cop, caught between a rock and a hard place. Comparitivelynewfacescanalsolooksameold if they are written so, and these two, who can be so much better, are the victims.

Hrithik does all the heavy lifting, and remains the only bright spot in this hopelessly hackneyed movie. He still has the moves. What he needs is a plot.

And did anyone tell those who wrote this film just how distasteful their insistence on using andha and andhi repeatedly, is? To use the phrase to express crassness is one thing, but as a constant descriptive is just plain unacceptable. SG