Swiss Entertainment’s Haseena Parkar (UA) is a biographical film on the sister of dreaded underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
Haseena (Shraddha Kapoor) is one of the many children of an honest policeman in Bombay. She is particularly close to her brother, Dawood (Siddhant Kapoor). Much to their upright father’s shock, Dawood takes to the world of crime. Although Haseena knows that what Dawood is doing is wrong, she loves him too much to take a stand. Haseena soon gets married to Ibrahim Parkar (Ankur Bhatia) who runs a restaurant opposite their home.
One day, Haseena’s brother, Saabir (Sunil Upadhyay), has to pay with his life as he had also joined Dawood in his criminal activities.
Soon, gang wars escalate. To seek revenge for Dawood’s killings, the rival gang kills Haseena’s husband, Ibrahim. By this time, Haseena is mother to four children. Sensing danger to his life, Dawood moves to Dubai.
Years later, Haseena Parkar is dragged to court by a man who has accused her of extortion and threat to life. Public prosecutor Roshni Satam (Priyanka Setia) lays bare the rise of Haseena Parkar as a virtual don after her brother’s departure to Dubai, accusing her of handling her brother’s huge underworld business empire. Haseena’s lawyer, Shyam Keswani (Rajesh Tailang), defends his client in the court. As there aren’t too many people willing to depose in court for fear of Dawood, Roshni Satam has to make do with conjectures. She also relies on the deposition of a police officer (Dayashankar Pandey).
Suresh Nair has penned the story based on real-life incidents in the life of Haseena Parkar, known by her admirers as Haseena Appa. First and foremost, Haseena Parkar is neither a hero nor as widely known a personality as her feared brother, Dawood Ibrahim, for the audience to be excited about watching her story on screen. Why, majority of the people wouldn’t even know what Haseena Parkar looks like in real life. Secondly, although Suresh Nair has tried to evoke the viewers’ emotions and sympathy towards Haseena, he fails mainly because the public knows her as the sister of a dreaded underworld don. All attempts to make her appear like a victim fail miserably. Also, there is not a single scene other than her husband’s cold-blooded murder, which evokes sympathy towards her. Thirdly, the interpretation by Haseena’s lawyer of money extorted by her doesn’t make her a noble lady by any stretch of imagination. Since the viewers’ sympathy hardly, if ever, goes to Haseena, the screenplay – also penned by Suresh Nair – doesn’t completely engage them and even when it does, it doesn’t consume them completely. In short, part of the blame for the film not moving the audience goes to Suresh Nair’s writing but more than that, the blame lies on the writer and the director for their choice of subject. The courtroom drama is interesting upto a point but the frequent flashback sequences are pretty depressing. The climax is dull, to say the least. As soon as the end credits start rolling, the audience wonders why the film was made at all. Chintan Gandhi’s dialogues are good but not excellent.
Shraddha Kapoor does well. She is better as the young Haseena but not very impactful as the old Haseena Parkar. Ankur Bhatia looks good and acts ably as Ibrahim Parkar. Siddhant Kapoor gets limited scope to act as Dawood Ibrahim. His acting is fairly nice. Priyanka Setia does a very fine job as public prosecutor Roshni Satam. Rajesh Tailang is effective in the role of Haseena’s lawyer, Shyam Keswani. Dayashankar Pandey makes his presence amply felt. Sunil Upadhyay has his moments as Saabir.
Apoorva Lakhia’s direction is fair. Although his craft is good, he has not been able to shake the audiences or even move them emotionally with his narration. Sachin-Jigar’s music goes with the film’s mood. ‘Tere bina’ song is appealing. The ‘Piya aa’ song has lilt. Lyrics (Priya Saraiya, Vayu and Kirthi Shetty) are nice. Amar Mohile’s background music is quite impactful. Fasahat Khan’s camerawork is of a fine standard. Javed-Eajaz’s action and stunts are lovely. Sunil Nigvekar’s production designing is appropriate. Steven H. Bernard’s editing is quite sharp.
On the whole, Haseena Parkar is a film with very limited commercial value as it doesn’t touch the heart. At the box-office, it will turn out to be a flop fare.