GUNAAH

Director: Amol Shetge
Music: Anand Raaj Anand
Lyrics: Anand Bakshi, Praveen Bhardwaj
Producer: Vishesh Entertainment Ltd
Starring: Bipasha Basu, Dino Morea

PREDICTED RATING: 5/10

Not a lot of Bollywood films manage to successfully recreate a Hollywood film, but the case of ‘What Lies Beneath' was an exception. ‘Raaz' was an enormous hit. It starred newcomers Bipasha Basu and Dino Morea and was produced by Mukesh Bhatt, and now the trio are back with crime drama ‘Gunaah' hoping for the same success.

This time Bipasha Basu is not a long suffering wife, but quite the opposite. She plays the role of Prabha; a hard core honest police woman whose aim is to cleanse the corrupt system. She is a lonely woman, but all this changes when she meets and falls in love with Aditya (Dino Morea).

Prabha quite literally almost falls off a rooftop during a police chase but is heroically saved by Aditya, and in doing so, he is arrested. Prabha is haunted by this incident, especially as Aditya refuses to explain his actions.

When Prabha gets to know Aditya better, she realises that he is a genuinely nice person, a fire brigade officer, who was forced to crime by the injustice of the system. She decides to try to reform him for the sake of their love.

It is no surprise to see another hit pair repeated, after Bipasha and Dino's sizzling on screen chemistry in Raaz. But Gunaah is no Raaz. There is no fresh story line, just the same police corruption and good vs. evil. Even the music is reported to be nowhere near as catchy, with Anand Raj Anand trying to fill the ever-melodious shoes of Nadeem-Shravan.

The real test will be when Gunaah releases on the big screen, to see if the hit pair actually do hit the spot again.

SCHEDULED RELEASE DATE: September 20th 2003

PREVIEWED BY ZAHRA NAYANI