मर्डर

I liked this movie cause it was a refreshing change away from the usual nonsensical dribble Indian movies are famous for.

Unfortunately, the concept of originality seems foreign to Bollywood, as this movie is an almost complete ripoff of the 2002 movie "Unfaithful", starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, and Olivier Martinez...with a few new twists here and there.

Still, I gave it a high score cause it was fun to watch and good for an Indian film...plus we weren't drowned with inane dialogue and senseless song and dance routines every ten minutes.

7/10.

Based on the concept of extra-marital relationship, Murder, the latest venture by Bhatts oozes out starring sex goddess Mallika Shrewat, Imran Hashmi and Ashmit Patel in leading roles. Inspired by a Hollywood flick "Unfaithful", Murder has complete ingredients to suite the requirements of the cinegoers who come to cinema halls for the purpose of entertainment and quality stuff only. The movie features plenty of skin-show, sex scenes and has an impressive storyline. It gives full value to the money spent on purchasing tickets.

Settled in Bangkok, Sudhir (Ashmit Patel), his wife Simron (Mallika Shrewat) and their son Kabir live peacefully and happily in foreign land. Being occupied with his job for making a prosperous future for the family, Sudhir forgets that his wife needs him physically and mentally. Simron starts feeling her loneliness badly. She also does a job to kill the time. A twist in the tale occurs, when one rainy day she happens to meet her ex-lover Sunny (Imran Hashmi) on a crowded road under heavy showers of rain. Both had been in love before Simron's marriage with Sudhir. This meeting leads the two to that stage where they can have pleasures but those pleasures can harm Simron's married life eventually. Forgetting all the consequences, the lovers' loneliness ties them in an affair. Sudhir begins to sense that something strange is happening with his wife. He hires the services of a detective who then provides Sudhir solid proofs of her wife's affair with a guy. The infidelity of Simron shakes him badly. This reality helps his feet go straight to Sunny's home where he confronts Sunny. This meeting thus makes room for destruction in married couple's life.

Director Anurag Basu gets the audience glued to the seats till the finale with his creative sense of film-making. At interval point, the viewers imagine that the story now reaches at the end, Anurag takes the viewers to the second half. When climax comes, the director takes the interest level of the audience to the highest point with the catchy sequence of events. Although the first half is slow but the film gathers momentum in the second half. And one thing is for sure, the viewers do not take their eyes off the screen even for a minute. The movie completely grabs your attention.

"Murder" is an immaculate effort by the director. Well-written script is impressive but the writer seems to be in hurry at one place when he shows Sunny's girlfriend all of a sudden. Anu Malik's music is soothing. "Kaho Na Kao" and "Bheegay Hont Tere" are more enjoyable and effective on ears amongst others in the list. Cinematography is gorgeous. Brilliantly caught urban life and eye-catching locales of Bangkok capture the breath. Dialogues seem average. Ashmit Patel proves his mettle fully. Although his acting skills went unnoticed in his debut film "Inteha" but this time he wins praises with his attractive expressions in "Murder". Imran Hashmi is simply superb. He is a true fit in this character. Mallika defeats the label of being merely the sex symbol by delivering her emotional performance. Her dealing with the sex scenes boldly also adds spices to the film's graph. Raj Zutshi is adequate as well. On the whole, "Murder" is rich in entertaining the audience and that's what they want in return of their money.

Storyline: The punchline of the movie says, "She is Married, She is lonely, She is having an affair". I guess this sums up the entire story. Now, one would be curious to ask, whether the skin-show is actually relevant. Well, I would recommend that you watch the movie to know more.

Comment: The story line is inspired by Adrian Lyne's UNFAITHFUL (2002) starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Oliver Martinez, with sufficient changes in the story to suit Indian Conditions. The performances are quite average and bearable. Mallika Sherawat has created new standards for skin show in Bollywood with this movie.

The Direction and Music have been given their due. The songs 'Kaho na Kaho' and 'Bheege Hont' would make the song worthy enough to have it as an mp3 in your collection. In general, the movie is watchable and makes a good pastime.

Murder review :

The Hollywood film Unfaithful was a highly successful erotic thriller which did decent business in Indian cities as well. The plot involving a married lady who has an affair and how it seriously impairs her marital relationship won accolades globally particularly Diane Lane's sterling performance.

It wasnt going to be long before Bollywood would get "inspired" from this film and soon enough, Mahesh Bhatt wrote and produced Murder (2004) starring Mallika Sherawat and Emran Hashmi adding his own dose of melodrama and song and dance routine. Quite a few scenes from Unfaithful were copied as is. The formula worked as Murder was lapped up big time by the Indian audience and became one of the highest grossers of 2004. It transformed Mallika in to an overnight sensation and Emran Hashmi became a serial kisser for many years. Interestingly, both Unfaithful and Murder were released at the New Empire cinema in Mumbai.

I had seen Murder at Citylight cinema, Mahim where it ran to packed house for many weeks. Hawas wasn't released in my area so I rented its VCD. Both the Hindi films evoked quite a controversy in that year.

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

This is another excellent piece of work by Anurag Basu, who is following the footsteps of Vidu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Mahesh Bhatt of post-Saransh era. I guess, you know what I am saying!

I wanted to give this movie a score of 7/10, as it disappointed me a bit initially, in that acting here is better than that in Hawas. However, as long as, everyone -- from the police inspector to the dentist's assistant in a foreign country -- is somehow Indian and speaks Hindi, I cannot rate it a mere 7/10. Add to that the wooden and constipated look of the Hashmi fella, and there is no way one can rate it anything less that 10/10.

Great movie. Highly recommended (though in my book, Hawas is the better of these two, as Hawas is more entertaining, with absolute lack of acting capabilities or diction).