Khauff

By Mushtaq Shiekh

Ratings : *  (boo)
Special comment : If this is fear, I need to change gear!
Anything more : Nothing more!


Sanjay Gupta is known as an LD director. A literal translation of which means he brings home the LDs and makes remakes of them. With his latest offering Khauff, he does not let anyone down; everyone almost expected this.

To begin with, let me warn you of the movies Sanjay Gupta brought home from his local LD store. The Juror and Eye for an Eye (an LD which was last handed out to Tanuja Chandra, who made Dushman out of it). Credit must be given to this director that he tried his level best to stick to the plot of The Juror. But somewhere down-the-line he seems to have lost the LD; no wonder there are some gaping holes in the script that can allow a pack of fourteen LDs to slip through it.

The movie is about Neha (Manisha Koirala), who witnesses the murder of a cop (Mukesh Khanna) by Parmeet Sethi. And now the bad guys want to get the witness out of the way. They need to bump her off and they find in Sanjay Dutt the right guy. This guy believes in doing the right things in an expensive manner, and so goes to all the exotic locales of Mauritius and sings songs with the woman, waiting for the right chance to bump her off. Finally, to surprise us all, he allows her to come back to Bombay. Not bumped off, Manisha Koirala feels its high time she woke up and smelt the coffee - that's what this film is all about.

Ample amount of violence, a very brutal rape, Sanjay Dutt trying to dance and Manisha Koirala doing her level best to try all the wigs in the world greets you when you see this caper.

After the best actor award recently, Sanjay Dutt would certainly want to look the other way as far as this film goes. Manisha, notwithstanding her hair-raising wigs, is very effective in the film. Parmeet Sethi, like all his other films, just fills in the gaps. Sharad Kapoor offers nothing great to write home about.

On the whole, this film is a bad "Kauff"ee table LD remake. Or should I say it's just an LD-let down!

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