Karz Hindi Movie
Karz: The Burden Of Truth could have been titled "The Burden" instead.
The never-ending tale of a tortured rape victim, Kiron Kher, coming to terms with her tragic case, entails a lumbering litany of convulsive twists and turns.
It's ironical that a film that tries to tackle a serious social crime like rape gets embroiled in its own little titillating agenda.
The film's main antagonist is a chronic rapist Yograj, played by Ashutosh Rana, who is a top-notch political scoundrel.
For instance, while giving speeches on female empowerment at a press meet, he spots a female journalist and Yograj imagines her without clothes.
As writer Anees Bazmi's cheap rhetorics fly fast and furious, does the rape victim stand any chance of securing justice?
Given that the audience is made a part of the villain's sleazy fantasies, Karz... doesn't even get as far as Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai where Aishwarya Rai played a rape victim trying to rehabilitate.
Kher, who should've been central to Baweja's bleeding-heart thesis, gets rapidly sidelined in favour of Sunny Deol. Kher dithers between hamming and underplaying.
Playing her love-famished son, Sunny gets soft and mushy in the first half and, inevitably, turns into a roaring Rambo after intermission when the heroes Suraj and his half-brother Raja, played by Sunil Shetty, join hands to vanquish the rapist and his men.
Sayaji Shinde is wasted as a villain in the film. Another talented theatre actor, Saurabh Shukla, figures in the script only to provide Sunny company when the latter drinks and blabbers about his illegitimacy and his love for his house guest Sapna, played by Shilpa Shetty.
Baweja does pack in some tender moments into the first half.
The sequence where little Suraj runs after a speeding train that takes his traumatised mother away or the one in which Sapna provides a sympathetic shoulder to Suraj are among the sensitive shots of the melodrama.
Sunil Shetty as Kher's legitimate offspring, Raja, provides a pleasant diversion from Deol's brooding anguish. The brotherly banter between the two bubbles over blithely.
Alas, in the second half, the two must get down to the business of bashing up the baddies -- this part of the movie goes completely out of control.
The blood-splattered finale encompasses a car and a train-top chase that could qualify as one of the longest climax scenes in a Hindi film.
Karz... loses its way in search of a palatable potboiler.
Sunny tries to bring a muted anguish to the role until he is put through a stunt stint. Sunil is the surprise of the film, attempting to lighten the plot with a roguish charm.
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