Review of Three – Love Lies Betrayal
September 9, 2009 by FSJ
ASA Productions & Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.’s Three – Love Lies Betrayal (A) is a suspense thriller revolving around a wife, husband and the other man. Anjini Dutt (Nausheen Ali Sardar) is a lady living in a bungalow abroad. She runs the house as her husband, Rajeev Dutt (Akshay Kapoor), keeps failing and losing money in whatever business he attempts. Quite obviously, he is frustrated and asks his wife to sell off her bungalow and give him the money to start business all over again. But since the bungalow holds sentimental value for Anjini as it belonged to her late parents, she refuses. However, she suggests that they rent out part of the bungalow and utilise the advance rent for his business. Enter Sanjay (Aashish Chowdhary), an upcoming singer, who pays 18 months’ rent in advance and begins to stay with the Dutts.
He realises all is not well between the husband and wife. In trying to sympathise with Anjini, she and he come close to one another over a period of time and end up having an affair and even sleeping with each other. Sanjay then begins to blackmail Anjini, asking her to transfer her bungalow in his name, threatening to spill the beans about their physical relationship before the husband. Scared, Anjini herself con- fesses about her affair, to her husband. To seek revenge and to fix Sanjay, Anjini and Rajeev try to frame him for possession and trading in drugs, but he turns out to be smarter than them.
Even as the game of one-upmanship is being played, Anjini learns of something that shocks her. She also realises that Sanjay is out to kill her. She runs for her life, with Sanjay in hot pursuit of her. What follows after the chase reveals that all the three people are engaged in a game of lies, deceit, personal gains and crime. The climax reveals who is what and how the game was being played. It also shows who is meted out what punishment and for what crime.
Vikram Bhatt’s story and screenplay are poorly written because they leave basic questions unanswered. For instance, when Anjini owns the bungalow and wants to hold on to it under any circumstances, why doesn’t she think of divorcing Rajeev and either living with or without Sanjay for company? It is not as if divorce as an option wasn’t available to her. It is also not as if the bungalow belonged to her husband and she’d, therefore, lose it if she divorced him. Writer Vikram Bhatt and debut-making director Vishal Pandya have not even addressed this possibility which, unfortunately, crops up in the viewer’s mind and keeps troubling him all through the second half and especially in the pre-climax and climax.
What Anjini instead does (not being revealed here as the film is a suspense thriller) should’ve been the last option, but once Anjini learns of the truth, she makes it her first option. She could’ve played the same game as she does in the drama and, instead, sought a divorce rather than doing what she did. For, she could have led a free life after divorce but she faced losing her freedom if she did what she actually did. Again, why the police officer (Achint Kaur) was so considerate towards Anjini is not convincingly explained. Was it because Anjini was considerate towards the police officer’s son whom she taught music? It is also not clear why a crook like Sanjay acted so naively by agreeing to execute Rajeev’s plan first and Anjini’s later. Was Sanjay not smart enough to realise that Anjini and/or Rajeev could be using him? After all, when all the three were frauds, how could anyone blindly trust the other two?
It is questions like the above which remain unanswered and, therefore, irritate the audience. Another drawback is that the film moves at such a leisurely pace that it loses the charm of a thriller. Rather, in spite of being a thriller, it bores the audience. The point of the timing of Anjini’s phone call to the police, which is brought up in the climax, is so basic that it’s unbelievable a smart operator like Anjini would not have thought about it. Obviously, it’s a very convenient twist in the climax. Also, the drama oscillates between the present and the flashback because of which it confuses the audience no end. Things like why Anjini ran from Sanjay, where Sanjay hid the drugs etc. are not very comprehensible to the audience. Vikram Bhatt’s dialogues are too verbose.
Nausheen Ali Sardar is not heroine material at all. She looks ordinary and does an average job. Akshay Kapoor is so-so; he doesn’t look like a hero. Aashish Chowdhary performs quite well. Achint Kaur fails to impress, more because of the weak characterisation and lack of a meaty or substantive role. The others lend average support.
Vishal Pandya’s debut direction is just about okay. His choice of subject is poor and, moreover, he has not been able to make a fast-paced film, so essential for the thriller genre to which it belongs. Chirantan Bhatt’s music is fairly good but the placement of the songs is not very intelligent. Background music (Raju Rao) is ordinary. Pravin Bhatt’s cinematography is nice. Action and chase sequences are fairly thrilling and the chase sequence, in particular, has been picturised on effective locations.
On the whole, Three – Love Lies Betrayal is a very dull fare which hardly offers any thrill to the audience. Flop!
Released on 3-9-’09 at Inox (daily 2 shows) and 20 more cinemas and on 4-9-’09 at New Excelsior (daily 2 shows) and 56 other cinemas of Bombay thru Studio 18. Publicity: ordinary. Opening: weak. …….Also released all over. Opening was frighteningly poor everywhere.
Issue dated Sep 6 – Sep 13, 2009
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