Erotic thrillers have been huge money-spinners worldwide, but it was not until Vishesh films took the first step and started making films like "Fareb" & "KASOOR" that bollywood jumped into the bandwagon.
The "Hate Story" series is one successful franchise and a new film coming from it would arouse among other things our curiosity and with a loads of help from the no holds barred teasers and trailers.
HATE STORY 3 comparatively is the best of the lot in the franchise, if you ignore the bad acting and the poker faces. The girls show lot of skin, but cannot act to save their lives ditto with the guys. But it is the screenplay with its twists and turns which holds your attention that you are willing to forgive everything else even the fizzled out climax.
Aditya Diwan (Sharman Joshi) a successful Industrialist happily married to his late brother Vikram Diwan (Priyanshu Chatterjee)'s ex Siya (Zarine Khan) is jolted out of his idyllic life when Saurav Singhania (Karan Singh Grover) a multi billionaire barges into his life offering his friendship to the couple. Things go well till Saurav asks Aditya to let him sleep with Siya for a huge financial benefit to the latter. Aditya walks out on Saurav.
Saurav meticulously plans Aditya's financial ruin, and extends the proposal to Siya. An enraged Aditya plants his secretary Kaya (Daisy Irani) in Saurav's domain. Saurav and Kaya get tangled physically and Kaya feeds information related to Saurav's business to Aditya and also a deadly secret related to Aditya's past connected to Saurav which could pretty well be the driving force of Saurav's vengeance.
Armed with such information, Aditya is all set to ruin Saurav when the latter turns the tables on him and Aditya ends up in prison. Saurav renews his indecent proposal to Siya who agrees to sleep with him in exchange for her husband's acquittal.
The task completed, Siya learns a deadly secret of Saurav and she realizes he is not what he claims to be and
Alas, if only the film makers had chosen people who could actually act, the film would have been a masterpiece in the erotic thriller genre.
Sharman Joshi is OK when it comes to scenes where he is required to stand and do nothing, but when he is supposed to mouth his lines that when the hamming starts.
Zarine Khan is ready to strip at the drop of a hat, but struggles when it comes to emotions.
Daisy Shah is pathetic both in the erotic as well as the emoting department.
It is Karan Singh Grover who puts up a great act, there are moments when he gets so deep into the skin of the character he radiates an aura of danger in the scenes where his true character is revealed.
Screenplay by Vikram Bhatt is clever and holds our attention, even minus the erotica, the movie would still make a good thriller. The only sad part is they should have concentrated more on the ending, tying the loose ends is just not enough, when they are not done satisfactorily.
Music by Amaal malik is good, especially with songs like "Tumhe Apne banane ki" and "love to hate u".
The movie has high production values and the direction is decent, Vishal Pandya succeeds in making this the best entry in the series. Hope he concentrates a bit more in casting in the next installment.
I would recommend it to anyone who are fond of thrillers.
