Article Updated 27 March, 2006 01:31:14 PM IST   Souten- The Other Woman By Prema K. ©2006 Bollyvista.com   Director Karan Razdan seems to be going the Mahesh Bhatt way. He dwells on unconventional themes but unfortunately for him, while his films are good at the concept and script level, he undoes it with his bad direction. He should stick to writing scripts and screenplays, and hand over the director's reigns to a more capable person. 'Souten- The Other Woman', as the name suggests is a sort of love triangle. The hero (if you can call him that!), oh we forgot to mention his name, it's Raj (Vikram Singh), is attracted to an older married woman, Mitali (Mahima Chaudhry). Mitali is married to Ranbeer (Gulshan Grover), who neglects her. Her lonleliness pulls her towards Raj. Raj's sister-in-law, Smitha (Padmini Kolhapure), who is almost like a mother to him, gets wind of this and pulls up Mitali. They are family friends. Mitali pays no heed to this. the confrontation scene between the two is good. Smitha even convinces Raj that he's walking on the wrong path. Raj realizes his mistake and backtracks. Mitali is reluctant to give him up but is forced to. Cut to Mitali's step daughter, Sapna (Kiran Rathod). She returns from London after completing her studies. The families realize that the two make a good pair and encourage them to go out together. Sure enough, they fall in love. The director has failed to bring out the passion in this relationship. Mitali is upset at this turn of events. She tells Sapna about Raj and her past. A shocked Sapna breaks away from Raj and what follows is typical filmi drama. The animosity building up in Sapna towards Mitali is also not portrayed well. The film becomes predictable from this point onwards. But we are still trying to figure out how the two are soutens when Raj has broken up with Mitali long before Sapna came into his life. It's not like he's two-timing the women. Raj looks so insipid that we wonder if it's sheer desperation on Mitali's part that makes her hang on to him. Besides, he has a major Shah Rukh Khan hangup which looks very irritating. He's also a bad actor. Mahima looks good as the seductress but we wonder why she shows her cleavage in every scene. She also looks bad in the hot number in the desert. She lacks the body to carry out raunchy numbers. Kiran is a good actress but needs to work on her looks and costumes. Gulshan Grover is good as usual. Padmini is efficient. Shakti Kapoor is okay. Nothing can be said about the music of the film. We can't remember the lyrics of even a single song. With no star cast and low key publicity the box office status of the film is predictable. ** (Two stars) *poor; **average; ***good; ****very good; *****excellent   close   Print this Article http://www.bollyvista.com   http://www.bollyvista.com/article/a/29/6386