Gunaah – Crimes (2002)

Directed by: Amol Shetge | 135 minutes | drama, crime | Actors: Bipasha Basu, Dino Morea, Ashutosh Rana, Baby Gazala, Avtar Gill, Irfan Khan, Sumukhi Pendse, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Yashpal Sharma, Jaywant Wadkar

‘Gunaah’ is a production of the well-known producers Mukesh Bhatt-Dino and Morea-Bipasha Basu, who previously made the film ‘Raaz’. This time around, however, they didn’t work with Vikram Bhatt, the director of this big movie hit from 2002. This is often given by critics as the reason for the lack of quality in ‘Gunaah’. The story of ‘Gunaah’ is loosely based on the Hollywood movie ‘Out of Sight’, in which Jennifer Lopez plays a policewoman who falls in love with George Clooney, a thief. ‘Gunaah’ is not original in this, because all films produced by Mukesh Batt are based on a Hollywood production.

As always in Bollywood movies, music plays an important role in ‘Gunaah’, but the music doesn’t impress. Again and again Prabha and Aditya affirm their love in the songs and this always results in the same music. Unfortunately, it lacks a great singing spectacle – admittedly: that’s not what the film is for -. which often make Bollywood movies worthwhile.

Despite the fact that ‘Gunaah’ is a short film by Bollywood standards (it lasts “only” 2 hours and 15 minutes) it is a long one. The lack of a good story (which is often the case with Bollywood films) is not compensated by the songs and certainly not by the acting skills of the protagonists. Dino Morea, in particular, is deadly annoying as the silent Aditya. For an hour and a half, Morea says nothing, and his facial expressions have to reflect his mood. However, he only manages to make one kind of face, and although he has a nice head, it gets boring after a while.

Bollywood films often have a tendency to appear very unrealistic to Western viewers (and perhaps even to the Indians themselves) but ‘Gunaah’ takes the cake in that respect. The dramatic ending of ‘Gunaah’ is so unbelievable that the whole film – which was already not brilliant – seems to be one big farce.