Hate Story IV: Erotic Thriller is a Snooze delight
Direction: Vishal Pandya
Produced by: T-Series
Cast: Urvashi Rautela, Karan Wahi, Vivan Bhatena, Gulshan Grover, Ihana Dhillon
Story/Screenplay: Sammeer Arora, Vishal Pandya;
Cinematography: Sunita Radia;
Editing: Manish More
Hindi / Thriller / 131 mins / India / 2018
Rating: 1.5/5
No marks for guessing why the low rating. Yes, we understand that the title is a rather obvious one and the makers are contractually bound to make a hate story only — each time but frankly we the audience could do with a break.
‘Hate Story IV’ may have been riding high on the success of its original franchise but looks like its facing a dead end now. The makers may as well call it quits and make a dignified exit while they are ahead. A girl wreaking havoc in the lives of men — is a story that the franchise has beaten to pulp. Period.
Sometimes it’s a girlfriend who wants to avenge the humiliation and murder of her boyfriend (Surveen Chawla in Hate Story 2); another time it’s a wife agreeing to sleep with a businessman because of convoluted reasons (Zarine Khan in Hate Story 3); and right in the beginning it was a journalist (Paoli Dam pretending to be a scribe in Hate Story) but actually desirous of being the city’s best w****, yet again to exact revenge!
In its fourth outing, it is the turn of Tasha urf Urvashi Rautela who seeks to destroy not one but three men in one shot! Her sole aim — a father and two sons (Gulshan Grover, Vivan Bhatena and Karan Wahi in particularly forgettable roles) who have destroyed her family by murdering her brother. End of story.
Surely, women do more in life than strip to exact revenge and once the deed is done, their wardrobe suddenly undergoes a change from bikinis and hot pants to accommodate chikan kurtas and dupattas — clearly misfit outfits in a film released with an ‘A’ certificate and sold on bikinis, brawn and bath tubs! And they go from being hot, sexy models to gharelu mahilas simply by changing clothes!!
As if it were not bad enough that Hate Story IV follows a predictable plot line, adding insult to injury is the lousy acting (across board), forgettable music and sex scenes that help you doze off rather than get excited! There was more excitement in the audience in the theatre (read young couples out to have fun) than on screen. Clearly they weren’t half as interested in the goings-on in the film as they were in what was possible in real life!
If the franchise films — and all three of them in the past have been declared ‘hits’ it most certainly is not because the content, plot bespeaks intelligence. It is simply that porn disguised as erotic thriller is legal in India and you get to watch it officially with friends in a public place. Vishal Pandya’s contract with Hate Story makers comes to an end with this outing and hopefully the makers will see the light of day and better sense than to venture with another film, with yet another filmmaker. Like I said, we all deserve a break. Definitely to be avoided.
