Film reviews
Men In Black 3
It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.
Bel Ami
The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
search the site
newsletter
Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter
Saat Khoon Maaf (Film)
Rating: M
Country: India
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Irrfan Khan , John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra
Distributor: Mindblowing Films
Release Date: February 18, 2011
Film Worth: $8.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Based on a seven page short story by Ruskin Bon, Saat Khoon Maaf trawls through 45 years of marriages and murders in the life of Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Priyanka Chopra). Driven by a relentless desire to love and be loved, Susanna weds seven men over her lifetime, and subsequently callously murders them all because of their severe flaws. Told from the viewpoint of Susanna's quiet admirer, Arun (Vivaan Shah), Saat Khoon Maaf, follows her suffering and the lengths she goes to achieve an ideal union.
Writer/director Bhardwaj is a cinematic genius (with his previous films pushing the boundaries of Hindi cinema to dizzying heights), however, he severely disappoints with Saat Khoon Maaf. The compelling narrative of a woman cruelly killing her husbands never rises above its own premise. Susanna marries men then murders them, and the film laboriously works from one murder to the next with scant justifications, no consequences, no slow dissent into madness for Susanna, and no time to reflect or repent on the killings. It's just a parade of tedious slayings and a test of the viewer's patience.
The film also falters because of a badly sketched main character. Susanna suffers tremendously and the viewer is asked to sympathise with her plight, yet she never appears more than a prop in the unfolding story. Her motivations for murder, the impact of the relationships and her thought process are barely justified, and despite 45 years of her tragic life on display, Susanna never grows past slightly spoilt, frivolous and detached. Consequently, Chopra's performance - often powerful, precise, and utterly captivating in a few scenes - is diluted. Her quiet restraint and underplaying of Susanna, rather than giving the character complexity, highlights her limited dimensions.
The male actors fare slightly better - particularly Irrfan Khan as a sadomasochist poet and Neil Nitin Mukesh as a sadistic Major - with more nuanced characterisation.
Overall, the gripping premise and powerful performances suffer from poor writing and make for an extremely underwhelming film.
