DANGEROUS ISHHQ quick movie review:

DANGEROUS ISHHQ quick movie review: Karisma Kapoor is good, Rajneesh Duggal fails to impress

Dangerous Ishhq

After making a series of horror films, Vikram Bhatt enters a new zone with DANGEROUS ISHHQ. This one's about Past Life Regression.

For those not conversant with it, Past Life Regression is one's expedition, through meditation or hypnosis, into your previous birth. An unsolved past life experience could be distressing in one's current life. Past Life Regression or Therapy can significantly aid the person in understanding these problems and help them reclaim the quality of life by understanding and altering the root causes of these symptoms. In DANGEROUS ISHHQ, Karisma Kapoor attempts to unravel, through Past Life Regression, the mystery adjoining her past lives.

But this isn't the first Indian film on this topic. SONAR KELLA aka THE GOLDEN FORTRESS, helmed by the master storyteller Satyajit Ray, was, to my knowledge, the first film to tackle this issue on celluloid. It narrated the story of a small boy who remembered events of his past life. He even mentioned precious jewels in a golden fortress, drawing sketches of battles he had seen.

The strength of DANGEROUS ISHHQ lies is its attention-grabbing plot, which the Indian masses can relate to instantaneously. With Vikram Bhatt at the helm of affairs, who specializes in narrating taut thrillers, you can be assured of a riveting plot with several heart-in-the-mouth moments. But, alas, it's the screenplay that throws a spanner, with the over-stretched second hour and a formulaic conclusion ruining what Vikram had meticulously put together in the first half.

Supermodel Sanjana [Karisma Kapoor] and Rohan [Rajneish Duggal], son of a business tycoon, are one of the most popular couples on the social circuit. When Sanjana decides against flying to Paris at the last minute for a lucrative modeling assignment, she does so not just because she cannot bear to stay away from her boyfriend Rohan, but because her instincts push her against going. But what her instincts cannot do is stop Rohan from getting kidnapped.

The high-profile kidnapping creates chaos in Sanjana's life. The kidnappers demand INR 50 crores. Time is of utmost essence. Death stares Rohan in the eye. It is in this extreme trauma that Sanjana discovers something extraordinary. She sees visions of them together -- sometime in the past -- in different eras.

She is confused initially, but in her visions lies definitive clues that could lead her to save the love of her life. As she follows clue after clue, she gets closer and sometimes further away from the love that has been eluding her through the ages. Would she be able to unravel the past to save her future? Would she be able to rescue her love and expose his true captors?

DANGEROUS ISHHQ has an intriguing plotline and writer Amin Hajee ensures that he keeps the viewer's interest alive by incorporating episodes that keep you captivated. The sequence at the hospital -- Karisma spots a badly injured Rajneish and the portions that follow subsequently -- set the ball rolling. The shifts between the past and present, nightmare and actuality are well done. The plot becomes more and more stirring as the reels unfurl, with the portions in the first hour so perfectly executed that one buys into it each stride of the way.

But the movie plummets in the post-interval portions. It's not the execution of the material that's faulty, but the screenplay that gets taxing and boring after a point. The Rajasthani episode in this hour has brilliant moments, but at the same time the Meerabai track [portrayed by Gracy Singh] is least convincing. The graph actually goes downhill during the concluding portions, when Vikram Bhatt and writer Amin Hajee decide to unravel the mystery and zero in on the person responsible for the kidnapping. It's at this point that the film falls like a pack of cards.

Since different eras are being explored, it is imperative that Vikram Bhatt captures the spirit of each period appropriately and though he makes a sincere effort, the writing gives away after a point. Besides, what baffles me is the usage of 3D here. Believe me, there's not much justification for opting for 3D in DANGEROUS ISHHQ and barring a scene or two, the 3D enthusiasts are sure to be disappointed.

Himesh Reshammiya's music in DANGEROUS ISHHQ is strictly okay. Barring 'Tu Hi Rab Tu Hi Dua', none of the songs have the lasting power to linger in your memory. Girish Dhamija's dialogue are functional.

Karisma Kapoor puts forth her best efforts, getting to deliver lines in varied dialects. She gets the dialects right, especially Urdu and Rajasthani, but there's not much scope for her to display her acting prowess. Rajniesh Duggal gets some scope initially, but is sidelined completely in the second hour. Jimmy Shergill impresses as the cop. Divya Dutta does very well, but, again, gets no scope after a point. Ruslaan Mumtaz, Aarya Babbar and Samir Kochhar have bit roles. Ravi Kishan leaves an impression, while Natasha Sinha is perfect. Gracy Singh appears incredibly phony as Meerabai.

On the whole, DANGEROUS ISHHQ is no patch on Vikram Bhatt's earlier achievements. This fantasy-driven film is an epic disappointment!

***guess he didn't get paid at all***

Subhash K. Jha speaks about Dangerous Ishhq

By Subhash K. Jha, May 11, 2012 - 12:57 IST

Karisma Kapoor's grand-slam of a return to form (and shape) in Vikram Bhatt's startling mix of myth and mystery in Dangerous Ishhq makes us forget, even forgive, Madhuri Dixit's disastrous comeback in Aaja Nachle.

Yes, there is life after 30 for Bollywood divas. You just need to get a life. Vikram Bhatt so far consumed in making relatively small films about para-normal experiences, pulls out all stops in Dangerous Ishhq to make Karisma's comeback a near-spectacular cinematic event.

The film told through many eras of tumult, mythology and history engages our attention on many levels. It takes its interestingly-etched protagonist through several lives in search of her missing soul-mate. This commodious epic time-frame stretching from 2012 to the 16th century gives Karisma a chance to slip into several costume changes.

Luckily for her and for the audience, Dangerous Ishhq is not only about getting into the right clothes. Amin Hajee's script makes resonant existential statements without getting the plot tangled in ideas and concepts. Beyond a point it ceases to matter whether the audience believes in after-life or reincarnation. Vikram Bhatt's splendidly executed mythological-thriller just makes you thankful for the gift of mythology, philosophy and cinematic technique that makes a film so daring in concept come alive in flaming colours of pain anger defiance and redemption.

Indeed this is a film that takes us far beyond the accepted boundaries of entertainment to forge a new genre of cinematic experience where the pauranic katha of Savitri retrieving her husband from the clutches Yama the God of death, is taken to an unexplored level of cinema. In Raaz 10 years ago Vikram Bhatt had explored the same theme. Here he takes the theme to the arena of the unknown.

From the opening scenes where Sanjana (Karisma) turns back from a traffic snarl on the way to Mumbai airport to board a flight for a year of a posh a modeling assignment in Paris, to be with her beau (Rajniesh Duggal) you know when it comes to love this lady means business.

Vikram Bhatt gets considerable support from his technicians in building a rugged reverberant artifact that carries the love tale through centuries of strife bloodshed and anguish. The drama is created with a keen eye for heightened emotions. And yet ironically, Karisma pitches her performance at a subdued decibel. Even when her soul screams in protest at being separated from her eternal lover through four lifetimes, the actress exudes fortitude and restrain.

Welcome back, Karisma!

Honestly it's hard to imagine Dangerous Ishhq without Karisma's serene graceful presence. She is never looked lovelier. Never seemed more at peace with herself even when her character is plunged into the deepest recesses of pain and anguish. Karisma gets able support from a slew of capable actors playing her predatory male adversary in various lifetimes. Rajineish Duggal partners her ably through several lifetimes of janam-janam ka pyar. Ravi Kissan and Aarya Babbar stand out among the villains who want to separate them. The judai ka Judas, so to speak. Divya Dutta as Karisma's saheli once again proves she can carry any kind of situation to a believable level. However Gracy Singh as Meerabai provides unintended laughter.

As for Jimmy Shergil, here's an actor who never lets a script down. Here he has a role that reveals several dark shades of psychological trauma as it progresses from investigating a kidnapping to investing in afterlife. Sheirgil is every bit in form. He is Parambrata Chattopaddhyay from Kahaani whose interest in helping the heroine in finding her missing soul-mate is more than altruistic.

But the film's real hero is Karisma Kapoor. She is virtually in every frame of the film. Cinematographer Pravin Bhatt (who has shot most of his son Vikram Bhatt's films) captures Karisma's lucid face in dazzling shades suggesting an ageless fusion of night and day.

And then there are the 3D effects. Never before in an Indian film have we seen the 3D technique been applied with such resounding impact. The flying rubble, boulders and the dust in the key action scenes actually makes you flinch as they hurl out of the screen at the speed of the film's excellent sound. Dangerous Ishhq has the best 3D effects seen in an Indian film, on a par with what we saw recently in The Avengers, if not better.

Miraculously the audience forgets the film is in 3D, as the gripping story takes over, transporting us into several world, moods, emotions and interpretations of love commitment and determination. Indeed Dangerous Ishhq is a far greater achievement than a sum-total of its storytelling and technique. Vikram Bhatt creates an audacious heady mix of mythology and the supernatural. He invents a new genre of storytelling where time passages signal a synthesis of the cinematic medium with the written fable without bending the basic rules of storytelling in either genre.

This film could be interpreted as an illustrated graphic novel with the 3D effects being optional. Leave it out, and you are still left with a film that balances many lives in the same line of vision without making the drama a slave to period or costumes. The film says, love in every lifetime will find its villain. Not a great or original thought. But then who said anything to do with love could ever be original? It's how you tell the tale of love that makes all the difference. Vikram Bhatt tells it with a deep-throated rush of passion .You may not believe in past lives. But this film sure makes you believe punar-janam has a future in our cinema.

A not to be missed experience.