Review: ‘Blood Money’ is insipid, absurd!

Zeenews Bureau If the similarity in the name of the movie is able to resurrect images from Edward Zwick’s masterpiece ‘Blood Diamond’, you’d better stash those in some remote corner of your mind while watching ‘Blood Money’. ‘Blood Money’ is no ‘Blood Diamond’, and Kunal Khemu is no Leonardo DiCaprio despite the heavy resonances in the name and the theme of the two films. Whereas the latter was lauded as a brilliant movie of our times, the former will sink into some deep abyss of oblivion. Amen. Cut to the story. Set in the contemporary South Africa, the diamond hub of the world, the film tries to usher relevance to the story with the setting. What it ends up as, is a dismal disappointment. Given the absolute absence of details and sharpness, the backdrop of South Africa hardly helps in exonerating the movie. For a film which attempts to delve into the darker recesses of the diamond industry, ‘Blood Money’ turns out to be exceptionally flimsy and shallow. A newly-married couple, Kunal (Kunal Khemu) and Arzoo (Amrita Puri), move to Cape Town with dreams in their eyes and love in their hearts. Their starry-eyed wishes are fulfilled with the pace of a hurricane as soon as Kunal joins a diamond exports firm. And in case you are deceived by the extraordinarily ordinary reception that Khemu receives at work, review your thoughts. This is the man who has been awarded a sprawling, lavish bungalow the moment he joins work. No room for speculations here. We are treading on the grounds of the absurd. Amrita Puri, whose funny role in ‘Aisha’ had been appreciated by people, has failed to emerge out of that cocoon. Puri speaks in the same way as her debut film, and leaves us to wonder whether she is the same behind cameras as well. Kunal Khemu’s tryst with acting might find a better viaduct somewhere else, not in ‘Blood Money’. And as far as his bootylicious co-worker Mia is concerned, she seems to have been incorporated into the movie solely for the purpose of titillating your fantasies. She sheds her clothes with amazing alacrity and leaves no stone unturned in seducing your faculties of reason and logic. So that after a point, you no longer care what the outcome of the apparently grisly tale of blood and money turns out to be. The lackluster performances of the entire cast leave you gaping at the mindlessness of the film. And the fact that the songs do nothing to stamp their presence on your mind, don’t help either. Watch ‘Blood Money’ if you have absolutely nothing to do this weekend. Else invest your time in something more meaningful! Ratings: One poor cheer for ‘Blood Money’!