Ek Hasina Thi (2004)

Karan is a wealthy businessman who meets Sarika, an innocent but

nevertheless independent and modern young woman. They fall in love and

Sarika begins to plan their future together. Suddenly Sarika inadvertently finds herself embroiled in illegal activities, is charged for a crime, refused bail and ends up in jail. Karan vows to help his girlfriend, but can he be trusted?

Amongst hardened women criminals, Sarika must change in order to survive... A well constructed movie, if one or two minor points are overlooked. It is largely a character study of a woman who needs to find strength within herself in order to survive...

Fmovies: Urmila Matondkar cracked this one. Her performance is impeccable and totally clings to her character. Reel to real, I must say.

Ram Gopal Verma and Raghavan have done a beautiful job with this thriller; written absolutely with finesse, characterization is mind- blowing so are the dialogues. It keeps you thrilled throughout the sequences and with the number of twists even the Hollywood biggie Shyamalan or O Henry would get startled. The screenplay is marvelous.

Now, this is one Bollywood film which you got to watch before you die. They don't make such movies anymore!

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? 60% YES

Language: Yes Sex: No Nudity: Yes Mouth-Kiss: Yes Violence: Yes; plenty

What makes this movie so good and convincing is that it strays from every Bollywood stereotype out there. The plot moves quickly and does not lag. There are no forced song and dance scenes as this is not the type of movie for that and I am glad that the director did not force these into this movie. The acting is superb and there are many western elements such as storyline and direction that make this piece fabulous and a piece for people that are not familiar with Bollywood films to watch.

It does get a bit cheesy when Saif Ali Khan breaks out the martial arts moves but Urmilla's acting is wonderful. You can see her character transform convincingly and Saif Ali Khan as the menacing bad guy is quite the fit! It's a revenge story finally told right in the fluff that clutters the few gems of Bollywood cinema.

It's a movie that did not have it's vision compromised for the sake of trying to fit in to Bollywood. I would definitely recommend this movie to everybody, especially those that have not seen an Indian film before and who are curious.

Ek Hasina Thi fmovies. I never even knew about this work by RGV & KSS with direction by Sriram R and sounds by Dwarak. I happened to catch it on one of those 24hr movie channels and what a fresh piece of work it was! The cinematography by Muralidharan, direction by Sriram Raghavan and the sounds by Dwarak are top class. From the cast, Saif Ali Khan, Urmila and Seema Biswas are outstanding. This has to be one of the finest performances by both Saif and Urmila in main roles. It was really surprising to see how on hell Sarika (urmila) could ever get into her jail terms. Her times in the jail are almost like the role of Stallone in Lock-Up. One never expects hardcore stuff from hindi films, yet this one has some of the most intense time-scale scenes in it. I wonder how this Urmila who gyrated her way with Rangeela could ever get into the skin of the role that she plays in this film which requires her to bring in physical encounters with jailmates and so on! The suspense is brilliantly held by the screenplay and background sounds. It was the ending that could have got a better editing. It can be clearly seen how the story loses its way towards the end. This one is for those who can appreciate intelligent and deep films by grasping the psyche of the characters in it. The direction is first class and if RGV can rope in such directors into his team, the indian film industry has got an invaluable producer with it. It really amazes to know that while other Directors struggle hard to set up a team of actors in the cast, Ram Gopal Varma manages to set up a team of directors along with a full team of cast and crew.

...but EHT manages it very well. Its a refreshing change from the fare the we are regularly subjected to by Bollywood. There are no ridiculous song and dance sequences, no melodramatic dialogue delivery and even the gory action sequences are underplayed.

The movie is about a single girl living alone in Mumbai away from her family ("on her own terms" is what the reviews say) and how she deals with extraordinary circumstances that surround her meeting the man of her dreams (on the lines of Pacific Heights, or Sleeping with the Enemy). The movie suspiciously feels like its a remake of some Hollywood thriller, but without concrete evidence, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

The movie manages to remain realistic on the whole without giving in to the usual ludicrous melodrama and action scenes at the end. Having said that though, there are a few elements that are difficult to believe. For one, the occupation of the lead character, Sarika. Can a single girl really survive alone in Mumbai with her lifestyle as a booking agent in a travel firm? And for a single girl, she is amazingly gullible when a man woos and beds her. Is it really that easy? Finally, Ram Gopal Verma's penchant for introducing threatening and mysterious characters that turn out to be harmless and irrelevant (the neighbour, Kamdar and the talent scout) is getting old.

Even with its flaws, EHT deserves a high rating. Not because its a great movie or will be a classic someday, but because it simply offers a better movie going experience than most other Bollywood movies today. Its very nice to know that a movie without songs can hold its own, especially when it is mainline cinema.

Though EK HASINA THI will never be considered a great classic I was pleasantly surprised that this Bollywood thriller was better than expected. The story is sorta hokey and the acting is campy but what's fun is how entertaining it was. Very few films today are entertaining, per se, so you can imagine how unexpected it was to see an entertaining thriller from Bollywood.

EK HASINA THI is not your typical Bollywood movie: there's no musical numbers, the violence is realistic and it looks modern enough. What's amazing is EK HASINA THI succeeds were many Hollywood produced films fail. Films like KILLING ME SOFTLY, which made me laugh nonstop, looks like a complete joke compared to EK HASINA THI.

Saif Ali Khan gives a good performance but the movie belongs to Urmila Matondkar, who is over-the-top and yet believable, which is amazing. There's a good balance of craziness, campiness and seriousness in her performance. Kudos to Urmila for giving such a memorable performance and basically making the film for what it is. Credit should also go to the director in creating such a fun film.