7 Khoon Maaf

Imagine! One murder after another! No, the film is not as rampant as that sounds. Vishal Bharadwaj subtly and with sophistication depicts these murders thereby preventing Sussana from being looked upon as a psycho. But still it is difficult not to consider her one! Well, at least to an extent. The girl depicts no sense of reasoning and prudence. Somebody ought to have told her, there is something called divorce!

Susanna who is in search of love gets betrayed, each of the six times she marries. She widows herself after being disappointed in her husband each time. The story has an interesting narrative and Vishal Bharadwaj deserves some praise for making the film so eclectic that it looks realistic.

Priyanka Chopra gives a performance that varies on a scale of being great to being average. Neil Nitin Mukesh does an appreciable job playing an extremely possessive husband along with being an MCP (male-chauvinist pig!), John is pretty average as a guitar rock star, Annu Kapoor as an investigative police officer does a great job, Irfan Khan's acting is as impressive, Aleksandr Dyachenko playing the Russian spy gives a decent performance and Naseeruddin Shah with a typical Bengali accent is very praise worthy. Somewhere the screenplay of the film deserves credit for making these characters easily fit into their respective moulds. All other actors with their trivial parts such as Konkona, Vivaan Shah and Usha Utthup and few others deliver a fine performance.

The music of the film does not have much to offer other than the Rekha Bharadwaj and Usha Uthup sung “Darling” and Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Bekaraan”. The movie also has a mysterious element to it. It will leave you wondering the relevance of its title- 7 khoon maaf!

No matter what, the film has a rustic appeal to it which is quite the director's characteristic. The film is not predictable despite its much revealing title. But in spite of everything, it does not serve to be that great a watch! This Vishal Bharadwaj enigma is surreptitious, stealthy and dark. It is something surely out of the box- now that can either captivate you or perhaps, bore you!

RATING- 3 stars