Director: Vishal Pandya

Cast: Karan Singh Grover, Zareen Khan, Sharman Joshi and Daisy Shah

What do you get when you pair two lusting men with two women with liberal sexual views? Two hours of softcore. Only Hate Story 3 isn’t as relevant to modern society as the genre it aspires to be part of. The film is not only jaded, it’s downright pointless. Right down to the fact that, the characters compete with the screen writing for what’s more dumb.

It’s called Hate Story 3, so it’s only obvious that the story needs to be driven by loathing characters. So you have a wealthy industrialist called Aditya Diwan (Sharman Joshi) and his flawless wife Sia (Zarine Khan) who literally has the perfect life. His business is swinging, the media is feeding off the PDA doled out by his wife on to him and every employee in his office has pledged the kind of commitment we last saw with Mogambo and his ‘hailing’ henchmen. The conflict in the story arrives in the form of a mysterious new tycoon named Singhania (played by Karan Singh Grover) with an indecent proposal. He propositions Diwan with the idea that he’ll destroy Diwan’s empire if his wife doesn’t go to bed with him. There are times when Hate Story 3 is trying to be Baazigar (1993), then aspiring to be Race (2008) and even trying to be a Jism (2003). Sadly, it’s not even half as good as the average fluff it’s trying to emulate.

The only thing worth appreciating in the film is the fact that Zarine Khan’s character acts as the anchor and guide to the mercurial Aditya Diwan. While he keeps bursting into rage storms, she acts as the cool and calculated advisor who keeps bringing the guy back on track. Only they never ever get to do anything intelligent anyways. But it’s nice to see women take control in erotic thrillers. But it all counts for naught. Instead, you have wealthy millionaires with murder and revenge on their mind randomly dancing to erotic numbers in night clubs. Not once, not twice, but all the time. Want to hatch revenge plot against arch nemesis? Hit the dance floor. Dance music must have the ability to inspire diabolical thoughts. If that’s not all, you also have Batman And Robin style poison kisses and women cupping men during foreplay activities. Hate Story 3 is for sure an unintentionally funny erotic thriller.

Even though Hate Story 2 wasn’t the best film ever made, it was a better effort by director Vishal Pandya. Here, he just ends up trying to sell you an erotic thriller, that’s at best a family squabble being settled with a lot of forced sex. The men are only coaxing the women to sleep with them. The women are only trying to find excuses to get into bed with the men. And once the copulation’s happened, they’re all out to kill each other. The screenplay is boring and uneventful. There’s no action, even the gun fight in the climax is just unimpressive. And sadly, it doesn’t allow actors like Sharman Joshi, Zarine Khan and Karan Singh Grover to create any impact.

Hate Story 3 is a small-budget thriller that’s designed with the specific idea of catering to the needs of its audience. With the right amount of oomph and risqué content, you can laugh all the way to the bank. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that those paying money won’t be as amused.