Haq REVIEW: Yami Gautam, Emraan Hashmi Starrer Fight For Divorced Muslim Women’s Maintenance Has More Losses Than Wins

Film:
HAQ

Director: Suparn Verma

Writer: Reshu Nath

Cast: Yami Gautam Dhar, Emraan Hashmi, Paridhi Sharma, S M Zaheer, Vartika Singh, Danish Husain, Sheeba Chaddha, Aseem Hattangady, Rahul Mittra

Runtime: 136 minutes (2 hours, 16 minutes)

Platform: In Theatres

HAQ Review

“Quran rakhne, Quran padhne, aur Quran samajhne mein bahut fark hota hai.” With such power-packed dialogues, Suparn Verma’s HAQ – starring Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi, is a drama that sheds light on the landmark Supreme Court judgement of Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum wherein the SC delivered a judgment in favour of providing maintenance to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman. While both Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi deliver hard-hitting performances as Shazia Bano and Ahmed Khan, is HAQ worth a watch in theatres? Read our review to know the answer.

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Set in post-Independent India, Shazia – the daughter of Muslim teacher/Maulvi marries Ahmed Khan – a well to do lawyer whose grandfather helped draft the constitution of India. After year of living together as husband and wife – despite the growing distance as time passed, Ahmed marries a younger woman (distant cousin) after her husband passes away without informing Shazia. After initially trying to adjust while asserting her dominance in the household, Shazia leaves her husband home along with their three kids and goes to her father’s abode due to continued disrespect and snubs from her husband.

What starts as Shazia asking Ahmed Rs 400 a month to look after their three kids while they live apart soon snowballs into a court room drama that last years and sees the same kids spend almost all their time in the court’s compounds. From fighting for just money to give her children a good life while she works herself, the fight goes to the apex court of India to deliver a judgement that saw severe backlash, political interferences and families breaking.

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What Works

The things that work for the film are 1) Yami Gautam’s stellar performance, 2) Emraan Hashmi’s restrained acting and 3) A couple of dialogues that are sure to stick with you even after the end credits roll

What Doesn’t Work

While film’s having a shorter runtime is always a boon – here it wasn’t. 136 minutes was too short to tell the story that created history. 1 song captures nearly the entirety of Shazia and Ahmed’s marriage and married life feeling shallow and not letting the audience connect with the characters on a deeper level. For a courtroom drama film, the courtroom drama is limited and features just a couple of appearances and power-packed monologues only in the final session.

The sound design too falters with the pitch and tempo fluctuation several times in the 2 hours.

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Star Cast

One of the only reason why this film has the power to shine and work well is the performances by the film’s lead stars Yami Gautam and Emraan Hashmi. The duo have once more proved why they have been actively sort after in Bollywood and fans still don’t mind spending money to watch them on the big screen.

Yami as Shazia Bano is everything you would expect from a Muslim woman whose first priority is always her Allah. From showcasing her bond with her father, husband, in-law, kids and even her shauhar’s second begum, Yami’s performance is nuanced. Despite the short runtime and no deep dwelling more into her character, Yami’s performance from going from Ahmed’s begum to pehli biwi will touch your heart. Her monologue is hard-hitting and has the potential to encourage women who going throught something similar speak up.

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While Emraan Hashmi has delivered a stellar performance, the makers did do him dirty but not giving him more spotlight (we aren’t complaining, but we are.) He’s loving, he’s restrained and his ego and anger are always just around the corner waiting to pop up and create havoc every single time. He’s delivered what’s expected of him.

The supporting cast deliver but fail to shine in the shadows cast by the lead stars.

Conclusion

Aside from stellar performances from Yami Gautam and Emraan Hashmi, the film suffers with a severely fast-paced narrative that could have and should have been developed further – we wouldn’t have mind another 10-15minutes to the runtime for. The sound mixing too faulters, disturbing the flow.

Hope our Haq review helps you in deciding whether or not you should watch the film in theatres this weekend.

Watch the trailer of HAQ here:

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Grinell Jacinto

With nearly 10 years of experience, Grinell Esther Jacinto is the Desk Head of Bollywood Bubble. Her interests lie in everything that is kaleshi and she loves to dig deeper into the lives of B-town actors. She has a problem though – she loves horror films but will have chills the minute the theatres lights dims. She’s previously worked with Koimoi, UrbanAsian and SpotboyE.