Review: ‘Hate Story 2’ has Surveen Chawla playing the woman-on-a-mission

The high-point of ‘Hate Story’ was the sultry Bengali actress Paoli Dam. She stripped well, and wore her bare skin like a wounded badge of honour. And when she goes after her evil tormentor, we feel like egging her on, because we want to see him bite the dust. Because Dam channeled pain and anger with vigour.

‘Hate Story 2’ has Surveen Chawla playing the woman-on-a-mission with visible effort but not as much impact. Sonika ( Chawla) is charmingly termed ‘rakhail’ by Mandar Mhatre ( Singh), and kept terrorised and shackled. She tries to break free, and to breathe easy in the company of nice guy Akshay ( Bhanushali), but everywhere she turns, she finds her obsessive captor.

We get the obligatory bed bits but the actors aren’t capable of raising too much steam. The action moves back and forth from Mumbai to Goa in a haphazard fashion, as the ground- to-the- dust Sonika swings into a `Kill Bill’ mode that stretches all credulity.

Singh is competent , but even he can’t do much with a plot that keeps him in repeat mode. Chawla shows occasional spark, but that’s not enough to front a full film. Even Sunny Leone’s pink lips, which she pouts most enticingly in a song, don’t do the trick.

(Follow Shubhra Gupta on Twitter

You can also send your feedback at shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com)