3 Deewarein Hindi Movie
The crux of 3 Deewarein lies in the abrupt twist in the tale which hastily surfaces in the last 10 minutes of the film. This turn, the filmmakers' obvious manipulation of the audience's expectations, might make 3 Deewarein a novel and enjoyable attempt at story-telling.
But it is also a let down. Perhaps because the coincidences don't seem to develop naturally out of the narrative-they seem too forced, too pat and much too clever. Kukunoor mixes two different genres of filmmaking in a manner that doesn't work as one cinematic whole. Instead, the 3 Deewarein that you finish with seems entirely unrelated to the 3 Deewarein you had begun viewing 120 minutes ago, as though it was two different films forcibly rolled into one.
The film starts off as a quasi-realistic, sociological study of three convicts facing death sentence. There's Jaggu (Jackie), the lawyer who murdered his unfaithful wife and is waiting for death as an atonement for his sins. In the meanwhile, he dabbles in some rather puerile poetry and cooks lipsmacking sambar for his fellow prisoners. Accountant Nagya (Nagesh) claims to have been wrongly accused of his wife's death and believes he'll be let free one day. Ishan (Naseer) plays a small-time crook and robber who murders by mistake. A bachelor in fine arts, he makes the world his stage, performing one crime after another. A queer friendship develops between the three under the watchful eyes of the warden Mohan (Gulshan) who believes in reforming prisoners rather than punishing them. One fine day, Chandrika (Juhi), a documentary filmmaker, walks in to make a film on the three guys and bonds beautifully with them. However, the film doesn't dwell on their relationships or their personal dilemmas. It climaxes as a nail-biting thriller about revenge and retribution. It's Naseer who holds the entire film together and has the wittiest, most ironic lines. He plays the charmer to a hilt with an easy humour and seeming effortlessness. Juhi's attempt at seriousness seems more studied than instinctive. But a word for Nagesh, the actor: making a two-minute Hitchcock appearance in your own films is fine, but for a pivotal character just look elsewhere.
