Haque

It's saddening that such a great story is wasted in such an incompetent film. The idea of a deeply religious Hindu woman, subservient to her domineering husband for years, finally summoning up the courage to stand up to him, is quite inspiring. It of course culminates in a great moment where she awards him with a hot slap in return for his, much to his shock and disbelief. This moment could have become a reference point in the history of Indian cinema had this film not been so poorly handled.

Indeed, the film is ruined by its own quest for commercialization which is evident all through - the high melodramatic stance, turning the heroine into this corny self-sacrificing female figure, the abundance of songs so often in the film, and above all the unnecessary secondary characters. So, Dimple Kapadia plays a very non-glamorous part, and in a poor attempt to make the film appeal to the masses, the makers cast two young actors to dance to some catchy songs as if to alleviate its seriousness. Quite pathetic.

The film is written by Mahesh Bhatt, who wrote some great female characters, but this one doesn't fall into that category. It's a challenging role on paper, but the film leaves no room for depth. To Dimple Kapadia's credit, she does the best of what she's given - she must have believed this film would have given her enough scope to perform (like Prahaar, Lekin, Drishti - all released around the time), but it turns out too bad to work. Even so, she remains the saving grace of this dull and underwhelming film.

Haque was one of those films that generated immense curiosity because of its promo that was released on video cassettes where Dimple Kapadia returns Anupam Kher's slap on her face with the exact same! Pretty impressive for 1991. For that scene alone, I believe many people were intrigued by this film that had the leading lady as the central protagonist. Sadly, Mahesh Bhatt's script is let down by an over dramatic screenplay. A lot of scenes are more filmy than real (but again, this was the 90s). Dimple Kapadia was outstanding and so was Anupam Kher. Sonu Walia had precious little to do except sizzle in the Anuradha Paudwal Number and so did Asif. Still, this is probably his better roles and films. Anand-Milind came up with a couple of hummable tunes, but none of them were popular. Harish Bhosle tried to make this a hard hitting film but lack of entertainment and an inconsistent screenplay according to me ruin it for him. Watch it for Dimple Kapadia.

Haque review :

A still relevant political drama; Haque had Dimple Kapadia as the wife of an ambitious politician Anupam Kher who goes to the cruel extent of killing the baby in her womb just to further his career prospects. Dimple goes loony after losing her child while Kher becomes the CM of the state getting a trophy secretary (Kunika) to satisfy his carnal pleasures. In its much talked about scene, Kher slaps her and she slaps him back equally hard to show that enough is enough!!

The ever gorgeous Dimple had gone the arthouse way doing films like Lekin (1991) and Rudaali (1993) just to prove her acting range. Haque fell somewhere in between arty and commercial as it had the routine songs and dance even with its offbeat theme. By the way, the gaana bajaana was left to Aasif Sheikh who played an investigating journo and the sexy Sonu Walia as his love interest.

Talking of Aasif Sheikh, he was referred to as the 'Kiss Boy' right from his first film Rama -O- Rama (1988) where he smooched Kimi Katkar. In Haque also, he got to lock lips with Sonu Walia. This was a decade before Emran Hashmi came on the scene and became the serial kisser of Bollywood.

Anupam Kher carried forward his corrupt politician character from Rahul Rawail's infinitely superior Arjun (1985) and Ramesh Sippy's Bhrashtachar (1989). Paresh Rawal had a small role of a goon who attacks Dimple and later becomes a political pawn.

Haque makes for a one time watch just to explore the political rot plaguing our system which sadly, hasnt gone away even today. Dimple's splendid performance is an added bonus!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.