Review: Hate Story 3 - An unexciting mess

Even by the rather low standards of Bollywood exploitation flicks, Hate Story 3 falls way short of the mark. Neither convincingly erotic nor consistently thrilling, the film stretches itself too thin in trying to cobble together a drama that can sustain itself over a runtime of two hours and bit. Apart from a grotesque storyline featuring two twisted men out to eliminate each other for no apparent reason, the film is marred by abysmal acting and scenes that border on the absurd. It is not until a couple of hours into the film that it becomes clear what the two guys are really up to. What follows is a stodgy climax marked by bloodshed.The film gets to this point only after hauling the audience through an allusion to an air crash, the closure of a cold drinks factory, a telecommunications bill in Parliament, and a bribery scandal involving a minister. Although the principal intention of the film is to employ its two heroines Zarine Khan and Daisy Shah as mere decorative props aimed at titillating its target audience, the screenplay gives them the short shrift.