Haseena Parkar

Haseena Parkar directed by Apoorva Lakhia is presented as a court room drama where we get to see the flash back of Haseena’s life as the prosecutor questions her in front of the judge. But the court arguments are pretty lame and the movie itself is this typical glorification of a negative persona and thus when the judge shouts “enough both of you”, we as an audience readily agree with him. With pathetic performances and muddled writing making the movie an unintentional comedy, Haseena Parkar is an extremely bland film.

The movie has been shown as a flash back story. It begins from the days where Haseena used to be the sweet heart sister of her brother Dawood Ibrahim when he was a nobody. As Dawood became more and more powerful things changed tragically and drastically in Haseena’s life. The problems she faced during that phase and how it eventually molded her into becoming this gangster figure Haseena Aapa is what Haseena Parkar telling us.

When you make a film about a real life person who had such a negative backdrop, there is a big question of whether to root for the character or not. Suresh Nair’s script is a bit confused in that aspect and I felt it was more inclined towards making her a victim of circumstances. The script simply picks the major events in her life and presents it in the most predictable way. The conversations have this unbearable dramatic tone to them and those one liners uttered by Shraddha Kapoor sounded funny. Apoorva Lakhia who has made films like Shootout at Lokhandwala isn’t interested in having any signature style and he simply repeats the existing pattern.

Shraddha Kapoor was never a choice to play this character. Her makeup in this movie to make her look like the real Haseena Parkar actually made her look like a girl who used the wrong foundation for her face. She acts like a mentally retarded in the beginning portions and when she becomes Aapa it is almost like the new Flipkart ad series where you see little kids portraying adults. Like I already said, her dialogue delivery at times will make you giggle. Siddhanth Kapoor is too naïve to be Dawood Ibrahim. Nothing much is there for Ankur Bhatia too. The only appreciable performance comes from Priyanka Sethia who manages to add some substance to a poorly written lawyer character.

The making is using the usual template to setup the atmosphere. Apoorva Lakhia is somewhat trying to get into that Milan Luthria zone of desi Godfather style but manages to achieve nothing. More than the making I feel it was the lackluster writing that looked confused on whether to glorify or stylize this character which made this movie shoddy. The dramatization of events is just paving way to the clichés we have seen many times. There is a film shooting sequence which is supposed to be a comedy but ended up as a terrible tragedy. And then there is this sequence which is supposed to be a stylized Marlon Brando Godfather kind of scene, but it ended up as an unintentional comedy. That is the case of this whole movie. Nowhere in the script you will find a moment worth debatable or emotionally relatable. There is no real attention to detail in depicting those early days. Songs are unnecessary in this film.

Unbearable won’t be the word that will suit Haseena Parkar. The movie is a mix of funny and routine scenes that you won’t feel any sort of emotion while watching it. I wasn’t even upset when the guy next to me attended a phone call during the movie.

Rating: 1.5/5