Rog(2005)

I watched this movie ages ago, but felt inspired to type something since I'm currently listening to the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is great. The movie is...not-so-great. I didn't think it was awful, just very, very average and lacking in suspense. As with most(?) Bhatt films, Rog is a knock-off of a Hollywood flick. In this case, the "inspiration" is the 1944 Otto Preminger film Laura, with Irrfan Khan and Ilene Hamman cast in the roles played by Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, respectively.

Irrfan is a world-weary police inspector who falls in love with a murdered model(Ilene) after he sees her portrait. He immediately becomes obsessed with her: he stays in her house, reads her diary, visits her grave, and dreams about her. However, it turns out she really isn't dead; she was out of town for a few days and it was another model who was killed. Whodunnit? The answer is obvious--well, it was to me, anyway--the minute that character appears onscreen. The remainder of the film is spent waiting for Irrfan to finally figure out who it is.

Irrfan was good and Ilene was adequate, given that her role required only a little skin show and the ability to convey a couple of facial expressions. I still say any reasonably pretty desi model-slash-actress could've delivered the same result. I was none-too-thrilled about seeing a White woman cast to play an Indian. And Pooja Bhatt's assertion that none of "the Indian beauties [she] met" were as "stunningly beautiful" as Ilene gets an eye roll and a "Whatever!" from me. I thought Ilene was attractive, but not to the extent where Pooja had no choice but to resort to brownface casting. However, as someone once said, "That shit's as old as the work week is long," so...**shrug**

Anyway, the soundtrack, as I already mentioned, is great. Even if you don't intend to watch the movie, I highly recommend giving the soundtrack a listen. If you have a pop-up blocker enabled, you can hear the songs here. (I didn't have a problem with the site, but since I got one of those "pop up blocked" messasges, I thought I'd mention that.) "Maine Dil Se Kaha", "Tere Is Jahan Mein", and the duet version of "Guzar Na Jaye" are my favorite tracks. Whenever I'm in the mood for something relatively soothing to listen to, I usually choose this CD.