Film: “Beiimaan Love”; Director: Rajeev Chaudhari; Cast: Sunny Leone, Rajniesh Duggall; Rating: * 1/2
An unknown actor who plays an important character in this unintentional farce stares hard at Sunny Leone across the table in the boardroom.
“What do you want from me'” she asks imperiously.
Well, what do men want from Sunny Leone’ Not a dramatic performance as a leading lady for sure.
Rajniesh plays an arrogant self-important egocentric casanova who thinks every woman he wants in bed will oblige. Then, he falls in love.
This is where the plot caves in completely. Unable to handle the complexities of a drama where the disgruntled become the perpetrators of wrongdoing, “Beiimaan Love” is like a tune written over lyrics that never made sense to anyone, not even the ‘poet’ who wrote it.
The film, if we may call it that for the want of a better description, is filled with ridiculous dialogues and situations that desire to make the heroine look sympathetic.
Sunny plays Sunaina, a ruthlessly ambitious woman who infiltrates a tycoon’s organisation and usurps his everything, besotted son included. Just how a character so inured in scheming and self-interest can be endowed with empathetic shades is a miracle that this film’s writers try to achieve. They are braver than us, the viewers.
While they think of ways to make Sunaina look saintly — and that includes a mother with a past who commits suicide — the situations in the plot and the dialogues get progressively absurd.
In one sequence, Rajniesh sends carnations to Sunny on her birthday.
“Are they for me'” she asks.
No, they are for the people who thought of making yet another Sunny-centric revenge saga that looks, sounds and smells so ancient, you can actually hear the wheels of time turning in the background. The bungalow that serves as Rajniesh’s mansion is one where innumerable Hindi films were shot in the 1990s.
Then there is the girl who plays Rajniesh’s fiancee. A girl with the morals of an alley-cat being thrust upon him for business purposes. There is apocalyptic moment in a hotel room where Rajniesh sees his fiancee with a stranger. Instead of acting shocked, Rajniesh smirks.
Our feelings, exactly.
This isn’t nostalgia. It is plainly lazy filmmaking. The prize for the most ludicrous performance of the century goes to Daniel Weber who plays Sunny’s not-so-secret admirer.
By Subhash K. Jha
