Jism [DVD]

"Body" is not at all a bad film. It is quite unashamedly a reworking of "Body Heat," the 1980s film that starred William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. It isn't just that the plot is the same - several scenes are lifted directly from the source movie.

The plot is a good one. Poor lawyer meets beautiful young woman who's married to a wealthy older man. They begin a torrid affair, she claims to be in love with him but too afraid of her powerful and dangerous husband to get a divorce, and out of passion for her he decides to kill the husband. Because he's been thinking with his genitals rather than his head he fails to see how he's been manipulated, fails to understand that a beautiful woman can also be calculating and smart, falls head-first into a plot within the plot and discovers that, like a sex toy, he's completely replaceable. This plot worked very well in "Body Heat" and has more than enough dramatic potential to survive transplant from the American south to India.

Then why do I give this film only three stars? First, the chemistry between the two leads is less sizzling than the chemistry between Hurt and Turner. The stars of "Body" are both attractive, and the female lead has the sultry presence (even when she breaks into the requisite musical numbers) to pull of her side of the film. The male lead (John Abraham - surely an odd name for an Indian) rarely rises above being attractive, though. He looks like a model rather than an actor, and he seems to pose his way through the movie. In fact, he's beautifully handsom even when lying drunk on a sidewalk, a mannequin who's partied too much rather than a man in despair. The Indian settings are lovely, but the film editing produces some jarring transitions (almost as if the film skips from one scene to another). The sound is very nice, the songs often quite pretty, but passion, lust and murder call for something more than pretty. The musical numbers are much less intrusive or jarring than they are in other Indian productions - the Bollywood aesthetic is relatively subdued in this film.

This being a Bollywood production, the sexual content is much more subdued than it was in "Body Heat." Given the subject matter, the Bollywood treatment feels oddly chaste. This movie is "Body Heat" with less sex, prettier actors, less sexual chemistry, prettier scenery, no sultry atmosphere, musical numbers, and less heat (the actors hardly even sweat; perhaps that's why it's only called "Body"). Not bad, but not terribly good. It is, however, entertaining, and sometimes that's good enough.

Body, also known as Jism

(a most suggestive name)

Is not your standard Indian film

(though the acting's still the same)

A poor young man named Kabir Lal

(who drinks more than a fish)

Falls in love with a married gal

(who's man of course is rich)

First hard to get & then she's not

(she hooks him line and sinker)

She riles him up and sets him off

(poor man's wearing a blinker)

He'll do anything to get a smile

(he sings a perky song)

"From Here to Eternity" on the beach

(that scene NEVER looked so wrong)

John Abraham is really buff

(he's got a V-shaped frame)

He spends all movie stripping off

(too bad his part's so lame)

This movie's about greed and lust

(no graphic scenes, I fear)

What a man will do for a woman's love

(when he ventures in her lair)

Rated: 3.5 stars

Amanda Richards, November 10, 2005

This was a very good film, it didn't show a lot of graphic scenes, but you could feel the love tension between Sonia and Kabir. I personally liked the Indian music that Sonia sang through the movie, it was different hearing music in a foreign language. Kabir is so fine.