Shane Nigam starrer Haal was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons when the CBFC asked for a lot of cuts before its release. They had issues with the content in the movie and asked the makers to get approval from religious heads, and even asked to remove words and scenes. The court’s favorable judgment was what helped the movie have a smooth release, and after all these fiascos, when you watch the film, it proves how dumb the creative brains of the people inside the censor board are. Haal is an extremely lame love story that uses the backdrop of love jihad and other attacks against the minority to have some structure to its credit. With the last act of the movie acting like a forcefully added satire, Haal is simply hollow.
Asif Beeran from Kadalundi, Kozhikode, is our hero. Lazy in studies, Asif wants to become a rapper, and he already has a band and stage name: Azbee and Monjans. During one wedding gig of his band, Asif happens to see this girl named Maria, and as always, the boy falls in love with her. What we see in the movie is the magnitude of the issue in this love story because the girl was from a different religion.
A Boy sees a girl, he stalks her on Instagram and public roads, the girl smiles at him, after a few days of this, when he decides to express his feelings to her, he gets to know that her wedding was already fixed. This movie, with this classic worn-out template, tries to act like a courageous tale that talks against religious hatred, and in order to achieve that, writer Nishad Koya has created one of the dumbest female characters with zero opinion on her life. The fundamental problem with this love story is the romance, or I should say the absence of it. The immaturity of the relationship is such that you would feel like laughing at the whole communal drama in the second half, which is based on a shallow romance between an impulsive boy and a clueless girl.
In order to win the censorship battle, the makers of the movie had taken the film to court, and the judge had seen this movie. I really want the CBFC officials to learn from the judge. Because, in Haal, the second half is set mostly in court. We have this scenario where the hero is accused of forceful religious conversion, links with ISIS, and the police want to charge UAPA against him. And to defend the hero, his lawyer is giving a speech about love in the courtroom and also showing the judge verdicts of very famous cases. I mean, he is a judge, for God’s sake. He will have awareness about such sensitive cases. Nishad Koya’s intention might be to lecture the layman audience about the false love jihad claims, but for that, he decides to make the judge someone who goes to his house and watches only the Big Boss. My faith in the Indian Judiciary was restored when I realized that the judge went against the CBFC orders to give a release to this movie, despite this film insulting his occupation.
There is a bit in the movie where the character Asif decides to create a rap video when a police officer insults him by judging him for his religion. The only possible reason why Shane Nigam might have agreed to do this film would be that rebellious musical angle. We all know his love for independent music. Sakshi Vaidya, the female lead of this movie, has only two expressions, which are mild sadness and mild happiness. Johny Antony is playing this lawyer character in this movie, and his preaching about true love and outbursts at religious people could only make you do a facepalm. Abin Bino plays the role of the hero’s friend, and I don’t know what factor forced Vineeth Kumar of Jordindian to be a part of this sloppy love story.
The film starts off as a musical, and unfortunately, the soundtrack of the movie wasn’t that great. Then it goes after Love Jihad, and the writing was superficial. Then it tries to salvage itself by mocking the extremist groups among both Muslims and Hindus. And that just felt like a skit added to the movie to give it a layer of social satire, since the first two attempts failed. Director Veera’s Haal wants to act as a reply to Kerala Story, which tried to propagate a fake narrative. Unfortunately, the cinematic quality of the movie was equally bad as the Shalini Unnikrishnan saga.
