‘AMEENA’ REVIEW | 12 April, 2024

Kumar Raj Productions’ Ameena (UA) is the story of an actress who plays a rape victim in a stage-play inspired by a true incident.

Meena (Rekha Rana) plays rape victim Ameena in a stage-play written by Aftab Hasnain (Ananth Narayan Mahadevan) who has based the drama on the actual rape of Ameena 32 years ago. One day, Meena is herself raped in real life by three men — Raghu Verma, Rajesh Raghwan and Mahendra Sawant. Like Ameena was under 18 years of age when she was raped by her 65-year-old Arab husband, Meena is also less than 18 years when she is raped. But unlike Ameena, who had committed suicide after the rape, Meena seeks revenge by killing her three rapists.

Aftab Hasnain and Dr. Prof. Kishan H. Pawar have written the script. While the former has penned the story, screenplay and dialogues for the stage-play portion, the latter has written the story, screenplay and dialogues for the portion which is other than the stage-play. The stories of Ameena and Meena have too many similarities to be digested by the audience. In that sense and otherwise too, the story is very ordinary. The screenplay is okay but it fails to engage the viewers much. Dialogues are routine.

Rekha Rana is average in the role of Meena. Ananth Narayan Mahadevan does well as writer Aftab Hasnain. Utkarsh Kohli is okay as Meena’s lawyer-boyfriend, Ashish. Kumar Raj is ordinary as police commissioner Bhupen Joshi. Prof. Dr. Kishan H. Pawar lends routine support as police inspector Pawar. Manu Malkan is so-so as Dada Ramchandani. Abeer Goel (as rapist Raghu Verma), Ranjeet Jaiswal (as rapist Rajesh Raghwan) and Rakesh Kumar (as rapist Mahendra Sawant) are barely passable.

Kumar Raj’s direction is ordinary. Music (Sujeet Sharma, Pravin Koli, Paresh Music and Hiten Patel) is commonplace while lyrics (by Lali Mishra, Dilip Sharma, Vakeel Qureshi, Pravin Koli and Vishwajeet) are average. Gaysil Naubert’s choreography is okay. Ismail Darbar’s background music leaves something to be desired. Camerawork (David Basu and Dwarika Mishra) is ordinary. Action and stunt scenes (by Suresh Kannaujiya and Shivac) hardly offer thrill. Mala Vazirani’s production designing is not worth a separate mention. Editing (by Ajay Varma, Bhupendra Pratap Singh and Himadri Shekhar Bhattacharya) is quite good.

On the whole, Ameena is a flop show.

Released on 12-4-’24 at Gem (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay thru Reliance Entertainment. Publicity & opening: poor. …….Also released all over. Opening was dull everywhere.