Kasoor

Kasoor
Directed by	Vikram Bhatt
Produced by	Mukesh Bhatt
Written by	Mahesh Bhatt Girish Dhamija
Starring	Aftab Shivdasani Lisa Ray Divya Dutta Apurva Agnihotri Irrfan Khan Ashutosh Rana
Music by	Nadeem-Shravan
Cinematography	Pravin Bhatt
Edited by	Amit Saxena
Release dates	2 February 2001
Running time	151 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	50 million (US$790,000)
Box office	150 million (US$2.4 million)

Kasoor (meaning 'Guilt/Fault') is a 2001 Bollywood suspense thriller film produced under Mukesh Bhatt's Vishesh Entertainment Ltd. and directed by Vikram Bhatt. It features Aftab Shivdasani in his second Bollywood appearance and Lisa Ray in her Bollywood debut.^[1] Ray's voice was dubbed by Divya Dutta.^[2] Aftab's voice was dubbed by Vikram Bhatt. The film also stars Apoorva Agnihotri, Irrfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana in supporting roles. It was released on 2 February 2001.^[3]

Anil Kapoor was signed to play the lead initially, but he opted out of the film after the initial schedule to join Nayak. While Kasoor became a certified hit, Nayak became a flop.

Plot

The plot is a copy of the 1985 Hollywood thriller Jagged Edge & The Kannada film Antima Ghatta] (1987) starring Shankar Nag, Urvashi and Tara. The film starts with the murder of Priti, wife of Shekhar (Aftab Shivdasani), a well-known journalist. Inspector Lokhande (Ashutosh Rana) investigates the case and accuses Shekhar of the murder, saying he has enough evidences to arrest him. Upon getting bail from the court, Shekhar's lawyer tells him that he will not be able to fight his case because he is a corporate lawyer. He asks him to contact Simran Bhargav (Lisa Ray), who is a criminal lawyer to fight his case.

Shekhar goes to Simran's house to convince her to take his case. Simran tells Shekhar that she'll defend him only if she is convinced that he is innocent. Simran is battling inner demons over a case in which she got a man convicted for crime he had not committed. Her guilt increases when she learns that the innocent guy had committed suicide in custody.

While representing Shekhar, whom she considers innocent, Simran falls in love with him – a part of Shekhar's plan to win her trust. They end up in bed and Shekhar enjoys Simran in bed. After the court declares Shekhar innocent, Simran spends the night with Shekhar at his house. The next morning, while opening his closet, she finds a typewriter hidden between sheets.

The significance of this typewriter is that there have been typed 'crank' letters sent to her office, leaving little clues that point the finger to the swimming coach (Vishwajeet Pradhan), who had an affair with Shekhar's wife. The typed letters all have a flyaway 't' on them.

Simran then comes to know that Shekhar is the real murderer. She leaves for the police station to give the typewriter she has found. Shekhar realizes this and is on the prowl to claim his next victim. At the end, Simran kills Shekhar in self-defense.

Cast

• Aftab Shivdasani — Shekhar
• Lisa Ray — Simran Bhargav
• Divya Dutta — Simran Bhargav's Voice / Ms Payal
• Apoorva Agnihotri — Amit
• Irrfan Khan — public prosecutor
• Ashutosh Rana — Inspector Lokhande
• Mandeep Tamang — Inspector Champak

Music

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Planet Bollywood	[4]

The music of Kasoor was composed by Nadeem Shravan. The music was extremely popular among the masses. Songs such as "Kitni Bechain Hoke" & "Zindagi Ban Gaye Ho Tum" were chartbusters and other songs were also extremely popular. Singer such as Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan & Alka Yagnik lent their voices for the album. The soundtrack received 8/10 rating from Planet Bollywood. The lyrics were penned by Sameer. Composers Nadeem-Shravan composed fresh tunes for Bhatts and this film proved as a successful comeback vehicle for the composers.

Tracklist

Reception

The film was a commercial hit and received mixed reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama praised the performance of the lead cast saying, "Kasoor scores the most in that one important department - performances. Credit for this must go primarily to the two principal performers - Aftab Shivdasani and Lisa Ray - who come up with proficient performances."^[5] Aparajita Saha of Rediff stated, "this is a film that attempted an intriguing premise but failed when it didn't fully explore that very premise and take it to its logical and rightful conclusion."^[6]

References

External links

• Kasoor at the Internet Movie Database