Director:
Pooja Bhatt
Cast:
Udita Goswami, John
Abraham
Rating:
First-time
director Pooja Bhatt seems to want to carry on the Bhatts’ legacy of
duplicating foreign features.
Paap
is no different:
it’s a near replica of the Academy Award winner
Witness
(1985), which featured
Harrison
Ford.
Young
Kaya (Goswami) is being geared to join a Buddhist monastery when she’s
asked to fetch a boy -- believed to be an incarnation of their religious head --
from Delhi. The boy becomes witness to a murder, and the two come in contact
with police official Shiven
(Abraham).
The
accused is a police official himself and enjoys the support of his seniors, who
now train their guns on the trio. A wounded Shiven reaches the two witnesses to
the Spartan environs of Himachal’s Spiti valley, where love blossoms
between the lead actors, much against the indoctrination of Kaya against worldly
pleasures.
The
screenplay is not only unoriginal, it’s deeply flawed, with inconsistent
characters. Kaya as the village girl is as believable as Michael Jackson is
white. Why a man could not have been sent for the mission isn’t clear. The
romance and Kaya’s conflict are totally superficial.
The
father’s logic of sending the daughter to the monastery – to save
her from the same misery he felt at the death of his wife – is laughable.
Bhatt’s
brief to her heroines seems to be: when in doubt, heave. So does Goswami, in
every frame. Her incessant panting could make Bipasha Basu’s heavy
breathing in
Jism
look like an Oscar
contender.
On the
upside, Anshuman Mahaley’s camera is a perfect complement to the splendid
Spiti. Soundtrack by Anu Malik and Pakistani musicians Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and
Junoon's Ali Azmat, though often incongruous, is the other high
point.
Buy
the music and catch the promos on TV – that’s about all
Paap
offers.
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