LOVE CAN HURT - DARR. Review on Darr - Bollywood

DARR was an important film for everyone associated with it. Most of all it was important for Yash Raj Films who had tasted only moderate success with Lamhe and Juhi Chawla, who was looking for perfect ending to the year 1993 so as to come up as Number 1 in the film industry. Shah Rukh had already had a monster hit in baazigar and was hot as sun, Juhi was resplendent and challenging the queens of Bollywood, Sridevi and Madhuri and more than that we had a Yash Raj Banner. The song Jaadu Teri Nazar had become a rage and add the ever dependable Sunny Deol who was coming back from critical appreciation from Damini and you had a lethal combo lined up. But so many times have we seen such combos fall and bite the dust. Was Darr one of them??

The film Darr was inspired by Hollywood Block Buster Cape Fear. The basic premise is that a girl is haunted by a stalker who gets killed in the end by who else, the heroines Husband. SRK played the stalker to the hilt and inspired people to write their beloved's name on their chest and then phone their interests at odd times of night from their residences. With the title being Darr, you would expect more than a couple of shivering moments in the film. Not to be, the director treats the psychopath with kid gloves and u almost feel relieved for him when he is with the heroine alone and either kissing her dupatta, her neck or dancing with her. Nothing wrong with that since that is clearly what the director wants to do, see the film from the neutral perspective with added emphasis on the stalker. However, we r not told why is the fellow such a psycho. His mothers death has affected him alright but no convincing arguments are given to establish this case.

The movie moves at good pace usually with perhaps a little too many incidents in the second half. Those could have been done away with. And like the movies of early 90's it does not have the polished look that yash Raj films were to master with DTPH. Cinematography is quite ordinary at places and the music is pretty ordinary save a couple of songs. The direction is good most of the time but it does not have the deft touches which made Lamhe a classic. Background score is also not as haunting as it could be and the costumes of both the male stars leave u disgusted.

Performance wise it is perhaps SRK's more original performance, rest all the films are a copy of this performance with an addition here and a deletion there. KKK Kiran is so much like KKK Kaurwaki. It is definite benchmark for the performances of SRK. But still it would have been nice if he had just curbed his instincts a little and given a controlled performance. Sunny is as plastic as u get and Juhi has pretty much nothing to do but look pretty. Anupam Kher is irritating to say the least. Rest of the cast r there to just compete is a wildlife park.

Overall the high that SRK and Juhi were in 1993 got the film a fantastic initial and also miffed more feathers like Sunny who claimed to have been sidelined completely in the film. Yash Raj banner was established and though the movie did not win any major awards it established the Yash Raj banner and gave it the direction to go to in 1990's.

P.S. - The first choice to play the role of Rahul was Amir Khan and he had even signed on the dotted line. But he left the film after another Yash Chopra film he had acted in ''Parampara'' failed. There were also rumours of him asking for a change in films' climax as he thought it goes against the basic idea of the film.

Rating - 3.5/5