Wow! Such a good movie.

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Good concept, poorly executed.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

When we see the first trailer of Hate Story, we think of an exciting, bold, electrifying story. Of Course, the erotica depicted in the trailer is anything but subtle. So when I saw this movie, I actually expected a decent movie. (I really did not have a reason to because Vivek Agnihotri isn't even a decent story-teller) Still, the trailer made me have slight hope. However, that hope was gone within the first 20 minutes. More on that in a bit, first the synopsis.Kaavya is a young, modern journalist out to find the truth and the truth only. She pulls a sting operation on a corrupt businessman Sidhart Dhanrajgir. "Impressed" with her work, Dhanrajgir offers her a job. Kaavya instantly falls for Sidhart and sleeps with him. A delighted Kaavya is shattered when Sidhart fires her and kicks her out. Kaavya, pregnant with Sidhart's child has a forced abortion done by Sidhart's goons and is left ruined. Kaavya's only objective now is to get revenge and destroy Sidhart.The story seems done to death but even an old story told in a new way can do wonders. (Agneepath being a recent example of such brilliance) Where Hate Story lost me was in the first few reels. Why does Kaavya work for Siddhart if the post has nothing to do with her last job? Money? If so, then why is she shown as this moral and ethical journalist passionate about her job? Why is she throwing all that away for extra cash? Second, how does she fall for Siddhart so fast? I mean, come on! She goes on a holiday with him and ends up sleeping with him right then? Isn't this the same moral journalist? Plus, why is she even interacting with Siddarth after proving that he's a corrupt money-hungry man? All those questions were thrown at me just in the initial reels. Not a good sign. The writing is poor, and takes the audience for granted. We're not idiots.More flaws? Of Course. Why is there so much forced sex? Also, I don't know why Kaavya went to learn "Prostitution" of she really wasn't going to be one. Plus, she slept with the corrupt businessman a week into getting the job - She's got the traits of prostitute in her.The climax is surprising but seems like something we've seen numerous times.The film really doesn't score much on anything besides two things. The slick style of filmmaking and the decent performances.Vikram Bhatt's story is old fashioned and completely flawed. Too many loopholes. Some dialogue is decent, however.The music doesn't offer much.Vivek Agnihotri's direction is okay. Actually one of the better things in this flick. It's stylish.Paoli Dam makes a confident debut. She's actually really good here. She looks good, of course, but there's also a dominant actress in her. Only if her character and script was better. Despite that, she carries this bad film on her shoulders. Gulshan Deviaha is also impressive. He looks awkward in the starting but pulls on his own.Resst of the cast is good too.Overall - A flawed film not worth watching even once.

An "erotic thriller" in India, man that's something you do not come across every day. So, Vivek Agnihotri did manage to gather a respectable amount of audience for his latest movie. For me, Hate Story is just about an average movie.The story is all about a cat and mouse chase between the protagonist Kavya Krishna played by Paoli Dam and Siddharth Dhanrajgir played by Gulshan Devaiya. There isn't much other than that.Now, when a director is confident about the script and the overall movie itself it often goes in favour of the film itself. But this same confidence hits it hard when the director becomes so sure about the movie's success that he doesn't put in the desired effort. Unfortunately, Hate Story is about just that.Even in Paoli Dam's case as the vibrant journalist(considering she is one the leading actress in the Bengali film industry) it seems that just because she's showing off her skin and doing bold scenes, she feels that the audience won't care if she hams through most of the scenes and talks in a weird trying to be sensuous kind of voice. I mean I felt so. Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to the music and let me tell you one more thing the PROMO of Hate Story was much more BOLD(if you know what I mean.. hehe) than the whole movie itself. A MAJOR REASON that left me disappointed :P considering that I had to tell my parents I was going for the movie. Plus the word 'Fuck' was used wherever possible which was annoying.Yet,(there's always a 'yet') I can cannot ignore the brave attempt, the good pace and the not so bad concept of the movie. Plus Gulshan Devaiya does a decent job as well. Nikhil Dwivedi is just okay. And Paoli Dam respect 2/5 My advice wait for the director's cut version ;)

The female protagonist, played by Paoli Dam, gets bamboozled by a tycoon's son, and it would have been a wonder if she hadn't been. Greedy, simple-minded, over-confident and full of silly attitude, she was a sitting duck for the ordeal that she had to face; such was her stupidity that she also managed to get pregnant (in this day and age!) in just one night of wild abandon. The tycoon's son was ruthless, but not ruthless enough, so she managed to survive the ordeal, and continued to drum up trouble for the bloke all through the film. And that about sums up this 'story'. The film appears to be have been written specifically for Paoli.. there is hardly any frame in which she is not present. The villain (=tycoon's son), played by newcomer, Gulshan Devaiah, is villainous enough. Rest of the cast is inconsequential. There is a lot of unnecessary, jarring background music.. and a lot of unnecessary panning and wide-angle shots of Delhi, and its neighborhood: Gurgaon and Ghaziabad. Are we trying to impress an international audience that we too have high-rises, a metro rail, a dazzling city center (Connaught Place), heritage buildings (India Gate) and ghettos (Chandni Chowk)? Sometimes, the proceedings border on the ridiculous. For example, when our high-profile heroine approaches a high-class prostitute to learn some tips on how to become a high-class prostitute herself. Apparently, the tips are successful, for soon, from penury, our heroine owns a Mercedes and moves into a sprawling, super-deluxe bungalow. Wow!!There is a lot of hate here, but no story. I just hope young, impressionable girls do not take the film's underlying message seriously - that blackmail and prostitution are sure-shot ways of getting rich in the shortest possible time.

The first promo of this movie stole tranquility of many erotic movie lovers. Paoli Dam, the bad girl in Bengali movies makes her debut in Bollywood and here also she isn't such a good girl. There's nothing such new in vendetta theme. A Girl tries to take revenge on someone who has ruined her life - many told and untold stories have been narrated in the same way. But still, depending on the hotness and sex-quotient of the movie, HATE STORY relied on a very risky position of expectations as the story and narrating of the movie didn't seem much impressing.There was time when vendetta was served like hot cake in movies. 1970's to 1980's were the most important times. Even movies like AGNEEPATH (Old & New), SHOLAY, V FOR VENDETTA, 1920, KAHAANI and many more are based on the same genre - REVENGE. Vikram Bhatt pens down an erotic tale of vengeance in such a modern time. But we know that his writing has its own individuality and so movies like RAAZ, 1920, KASOOR, RED are a must watch. But in writing HATE STORY, sensitivities, amount of suspense, thrills lacked attendance from him and that can be clearly seen in the movie.The story revolves around Kaavya (Paoli Dam) and her transformation from a simple middle class journalist to a sex worker to seek revenge. Kaavya, who doesn't have anything to lose anymore, uses her sexuality as a lethal weapon to rip Siddharth (Gulshan Devaiah) apart by using everyone connected to him one way or another. Thus begins the journey of hatred and brutal vengeance.This affects everyone around Kaavya, including her family and her best friend Vicky (Nikhil Dwivedi), who secretly loves her.Such a simple in the shape of brutal story doesn't affect the story but misses chance to glorify the story or be an advantageous element fir a movie. Some things like how Kaavya first sexually makes her movie for the CEO (Joy Sengupta) & the politician (Mohan Kapoor) and then uses them to light the fire for Siddharth. Bhairavi Goswami helped Kaavya to become a sex-worker. Such characters do give the story some meaning but in the end, nothing does matter.Vikram Bhatt wrote with some sincerity but as I said before, he mainly concentrated on the sensuality part rather than the grip of the story. The script is also by him which is not bad but lacks interest in many places. Dialogues by Rohit Malhotra lack freshness. Cinematography by Attar Singh Saini is strictly OK. Satyajeet Gazmer's editing is average. Abbas Ali Moghul's action direction works in certain parts. Amar Mohile's background music fits the situations perfectly. The soundtrack of the movie is strictly alright and shows no hope but songs like RAAT and DIL KAANCH SA show hope for situations. Giving such good songs in MURDER 2, it was a total disappointment from Harshit Saxena.Paoli Dam, after working in various Bengali films, works like very subordinate in HATE STORY. As the leading lady and the most important character of the movie, it was a great responsibility to carry out the role perfectly. But she impresses by keeping the anxiety escalating with her tough and titular act. Gulshan Devaiya was impressing in his strong and effective negative role. As the films is featured on the conflict between Paoli & Gulshan, they made wonderful efforts to make this vengeance story pass with great enthusiasm. As seen on, Dumb MAARO Dumb, THE GIRL WITH THE YELLOW BOOTS and SHAITAN, Gulshan Devaiah always works in the negative and dark roles. Nikhil Dwivedi, the only character who is filled with positive potential in the movie does a very good job. His immense support and friendship helped Kaavya very much till the end of the movie. Mohan Kapoor was good. Joy Sengupta was fine. Iravati, Saurabh Dubey, Gopal and Bhairavi Goswami were very small and negligible.On the whole, HATE STORY relies on a paper thin plot & survives only for impressing performances by the two leading actors Paoli Dam & Gulshan Devaiah. There's simply no hope for this movie to make a good move but there's something that can save this movie is its bold, inflammatory & provocative scenes that can be liked by some people (No Offence). Can be easily avoided.