Sins

In my experience, Sins is not half as bad as some describe it. Frankly, I don't care whether a movie is a "remake" or "based on the storyline" of another movie at all. Strangely, when Hollywood makes a remake of a European or Asiatic movie, we all should treat that as a great honor, but when the same thing happens in India, we start yelling about plagiarism or ripoffs. I don't buy that.

The problem with this movie is not that it is a remake, not that the story is bad. No, the problem is the language. Why on Earth was it made in English? To be honest, all those English dialogs spoken on the South Indian countryside have a really bad effect on the credibility of the whole story. And the worst is: it's quite obvious that Shiny Ahuja, the main protagonist of the movie, doesn't know the language well enough to perform in a relaxed manner. I generally like Shiny as an actor, but in this movie his acting is so horribly wooden and clumsy, that I can't help getting the impression that he had to waste too much energy on trying to remember his English text. All in all, it's sad to see how an otherwise great actor becomes the one who actually kills a potentially good movie.

Who's watching Mexican cinema now? First Yuva paid "homage " to Amores Perros now it looks like El Crimen de Padre Amaro (with Bernal) has been "reimagined" as Sins. Not that Mexican cinema is the only source for even critically acclaimed films - Bhansali's Black and Khamoshi were both influenced by foreign films. And there are countless other movies that do not register but may well be copied. India may make the highest number of movies every year but its also film-making at its laziest and shoddiest. But Shiny Ahuja is definitely an actor to watch for. He was wonderful in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and one hopes he doesn't get sucked into the Bollywood assembly line.

Sins is a good candidate to become a cult movie - something along the lines of Plan Nine From Outer Space. It's so awful that it's actually hilarious. Bad acting made even worse by a dreadful script. I don't understand why the director felt the need to make the movie in English. Why not have Hindi dialogues or maybe Malayalam itself with English subtitles, since the story takes place in Kerala? The base story is not all that bad...it had the potential to be at least a mediocre movie. But somehow it has turned out to be a really terrible one. I would still recommend this to anyone who's looking for a good laugh as long as you don't expect anything more than that. Well, maybe couple of titillating scenes too.

Imagine a priest preaching about leading a virtuous life and then having a parallel existence defying all the preaching. Its no surprise that all the Christian organizations made so much noise over it!! But it is, by far, the most boldly made movie I have seen from an Indian director/producer. The story line was amazing. Its sad that people would give any amount of money to see SRK say 'K-K-K-Kiran' but no one wants to see a movie where they are portraying a priest and his conflicts between his wants and vows.

Shiny Ahuja does a brilliant performance as the priest. I could not believe that it was actually his first movie! He portrayed all the shades of the character so beautifully. The actress (did not catch her name) was not really that impressive. Nice body... but acting needs to improve a lot. The background score was good too...

I am amused as to why so much noise was made over this movie. Come on, a priest is also a human being. It is just human to slip up and make mistakes. Why do people have to generalize it and protest?? No one said that all priests are like this. It is just the story of one man who obviously was not ready for a life of celibacy. As far as the direction goes, I think Vinod Pande did a terrific job in keeping the movie from becoming just a skin flick. He concentrates on the story line and follows it to completion with amazing grace.

"Sins" presents the darker side of a catholic priest and is bold enough to expose a truth. Perhaps for the reason, the film also got banned. The film shows the evilness of a priest who becomes romantically involved with a lady, gets her pregnant, uses her for his sexual lust, and even commits a murder. Vinod Pande, who in '80s has given off stream movies in the '80s like "Ek Baar Phir" and "Yeh Nazdeekiyan" which both had the extra marital affairs in the centre, narrates the story with the same clarity and tautness. The dialogues are done in a simple English and feels like reading a story, without songs or dance number. Ignoring the controversy or the plagiarism the film got criticized for, the film appears a good effort in terms of its story telling which is clear, colloquial, and scorches the screen with an ugly truth, for which the film can be recommended for the mature viewers, due to its explicit content. There are also flaws in the film, like its slow pace and Shiny Ahuja's performance.

Rating: 2 stars out of 4