Monika’s Pensieve

{FILM DIARY}

Murder (India, 2004)

Seen: Tuesday, 16th December 2008 (DVD)
Runtime: 130′
Polish Distributor: I’m not sure if it has one…
Director: Anurag Basu
Cast: Mallika Sherawat, Emraan Hashmi, Ashmit Patel
Production House: Bhatt Productions
Plot: A murder, an extra-marital affair and generally a combination of a lot of sex and violence :]

Interview Clip Mentioning the Film
For me the main reason to see this film was Mallika Sherawat and since I couldn’t find any clips of this film on-line which didn’t involve some sort of representation of sex, fore-play or other things you might not want to be caught watching if, for example, you’re reading this blog at work, I thought I’d post this instead ;) It’s a lively Al Jazeera interview with Mallika Sherawat and there are some short (non-XXX) clips from the film scattered around during it.

Impressions In Short
It’s quite strange seeing a Bollywood film that exploits sex and violence so overtly (part of the reason I was curious about seeing it).
It’s my first proper look at Mallika Sherawat, who I’ve wanted to see for a long time and I like her *grin*

Some Details
I’ve only seen Mallika Sherawat in Guru so far and that’s just a cameo in the opening song (very nice one, but it doesn’t tell me all that much about her :]). Other than that I’ve seen some interviews and keep reading about her in the Indian tabloids (she is very popular with them ;)). She definitely knows how to grab people’s attention - mainly I guess because of her sex appeal and outspokenness, but there’s actually more to her than that (I think the interview above proves it).
Murder is a film she did early on in her career and it’s the one which helped her break through into the mainstream and I can see why. It’s not exactly the kind of script that lets one create a complex character, but she’s good in it.
This was also my second look at the Serial Kisser of Bollywood, Emraan Hashmi (my first look was reviewed here *grin*). This time I did get to see him kiss ;) More than once I may add. Also he annoyed me less in this film (perhaps because the character in this one isn’t of the moral sort and you’re given much more leeway to choose how to feel about him), but I’m still far from being a fan :]
As for the film itself, I feared it might be pure exploitation of sex and violence. It does do quite a bit of that ;) However, it also has a relatively engaging detective story, a slightly different style of narrative and even some remnants of a social message ;)

Recommended?
It’s not as bad or as sleazy as I thought it might be. I mean at least I wasn’t bored. But I wouldn’t recommend it… Not unless you’re going through the filmography of the director or one of the actors. Or unless maybe you feel like watching a lot of simulated sex scenes and unsimulated kissing scenes between Mallika Sherawat and Emraan Hashmi and a little bit of gore here and there ;)
And in case anyone wants to know - there are no proper song & dance kind of scenes in this film. The songs are all part of the narrative or used as background music.