Love Hostel, Review: Khaps, cops, corpses, more corpses and still more corpses

It’s not about a hostel. But it is about love. And the price that has to be paid for falling in love with someone who follows another religion. Killings spread through the film like a pandemic caused by a particularly deadly virus strain, ‘LH Covid 22’. The makers could run a contest with the big question: How many people are killed in the film? The prize could be four tickets for the film, so that your friends and family can enjoy the mayhem you applauded. Or, to make it easier, they could change the question to: How many characters remain alive at the end of the film? Here the prize could be a free ticket for the winner’s repeat show, to enjoy the gory glory again. After all, death has rarely been portrayed more slickly and stylistically in any film. Welcome to Love Hostel.

Present day Haryana, the state in North India where village committees called Khap panchayats, enforce the laws of their ancestors, over-riding the Indian Constitution and the laws enacted under it, especially when it comes to marriage without the family’s consent, or marriage with a person from another caste or religion. A girl, Jyoti, is about to be married to a boy of her family’s choice, but is in love with another man, Ashu. She does the unthinkable: elopes from the marriage ceremony. Now, she has committed two major offences; firstly, she has refused to marry the boy chosen for her, and, secondly, she, a Hindu, has eloped with a Muslim boy, whose real name is Ahmed Shokeen (that could be spelt Shauqeen, if phonetics were considered). The ruling matriarch of the family, a wheel-chair bound grand-mother, pronounces her verdict, in consonance with the Khaps’ tradition of ‘honour killings’, which, to her, means death to the boy, and live burial, by her own hands, in the family’s mansion grounds, for her grand-daughter.

A legislator to boot, the matriarch is an epitome of corruption and all that is evil among politicians. She contacts Dagar, a crazy contract killer, who is legally dead or missing in police records but roams around freely, to carry out her brief. Before he enters the scene, the couple is helped by a school-teacher, who gets them married in court, but the court orders that they should be kept in the District safe-home for a week, after which the girl’s family will be summoned, heard and warned that they should not harm the girl.

The safe-home is anything but a safe-home, and is run a corrupt to the core, dictatorial, megalomaniac of a policeman called Chaudhary, who calls it Love Hostel. Ok, so the title is not totally misleading. It houses around a dozen other such couples, who are given one large hall to live in, each unit separated by cloth curtains, and the hall locked from the outside. Ahmed comes from a poor family, with no father and has a mother suffering from dementia. He has resorted to beef smuggling (sale or consumption of beef has banned in most parts of India by the present Federal Government). He told his bosses that he wants out, because he is getting married, but they order him to make a ‘delivery’ on his wedding night itself. All this while, Dagar is on their trail, leaving behind a heap of corpses at every stop.

When three writers, including the director, are credited with the story, screenplay and dialogue, it is impossible to guess who has contributed exactly what. Love Hostel credits Mehak Zooni Jamal, from Kashmir, and now based in Mumbai, who makes her feature film debut, as one of these three. She has worked as script supervisor, Director’s Assistant, 2^nd Assistant Director and Chief Assistant Director. Mehak has written scripts for the OTT platform, Disney + Hotstar, and ZEE5, on which Love Hostel will be shown, commencing 25 February. The next credit is Yogi Singha, an actor director, who acted in, among other film and TV productions, Gurgaon, co-written and directed by director Shanker Raman. And then there is Shanker Raman himself, the director. A cinematographer since 1997, Love Hostel is his second film as director. Not having seen Gurgaon, I will have to base all my observations on the film at hand, Love Hostel, which is backed by two big banners, Red Chillies Entertainment (of ShahRukh and Gauri Khan) and Drishyam Movies (of Manish Mundra).

In the last two decades, there has been no dearth of honour killing reports and the entire issue of Khap panchayats. How well has this matter been addressed and what is the current status of the issue, the media has not been reporting, of late. But to add a touch of currency to the problem, the writers have brought in the highly controversial issue of the ban on beef as well. They have also brought in the angle of gay love, again with Hindu and Muslim partners. These are clever developments of the screenplay. On the other hand, if you look at the skeleton of the story, it appears quite tame and predictable. A Muslim boy and a Hindu girl elope, the boy is also a beef smuggler, but wants to quit the racket, a matriarch pronounces death to the offenders and hires a contract killer, the police play a grey role, some of them keen on doing their duty, others in cahoots with the criminals. Nothing original, except the beef bit. Nothing exciting yet. But just hold on to your horses.

Nobody has heard of safe-homes for couples getting married at a Registrar’s office, against the wishes of one of the parties’ family, in India. And if these safe-houses, in reality, exist, and are like what one of them is portrayed, resembling a cheap whorehouse, then it is a crying shame. If it is entirely a figment of one of the writers’ ‘imagination’, one might suspect that the idea could have actually come from a foreign film. If not, it is creative liberty well-utilised. It was a good idea to have a matriarch instead of a patriarch, for it is the daughter of the house who has eloped. She is delineated like any other Godmother, with the additional touches of being a legislator, guzzling a huqqa, and being wheel-chair bound.

The fact that it is her younger brother who beats up Jyoti black and blue is interesting, as is the fact that she does not lodge an FIR (First Information Report, a complaint with the police) against him, merely because he is her younger brother. We see telling glimpses of the girl’s large family and their stands: from against the marriage, to ambivalent, to for. Ahmed’s mother is a well-conceived character, with just the right amount of footage. The police come and go, and the encounters are often one-sided, with the law being the loser. Why is crack-shot Dagar unable to get Ahmed for many a reels, although he shoots him in the leg, remains a mystery. As does the bullet, which is embedded in Dagar’s thigh/abdomen, and he seems to be unaware of it, till someone points it out to him. Talking about the dialogues, profanities are heard, but, mercifully, not in abundance.

One man is the focus of the bulk of action, and he is Dagar. A sadistic, unstable enforcer of the local ‘laws’, he goes around killing anybody and everybody, randomly, usually shooting them on their forehead, with only one or two exceptions, and one wonders why. There is a reason for his madness, which is delivered as some kind of justification, towards the end, but nobody could get away with so many murders, except in movies. Though he is sinister and menacing, it appears that the attempt is to showcase his acting ability, using merely expressions, particularly because he hardly speaks, and has a beard and moustache. Some of his traits include drinking tea at dhabas, taking a dog as a pet, getting treated for bullet wounds by a veterinary doctor and quoting from the Mahaabhaarat. Assessed on a convoluted scale, the role might even bring the actor some awards.

The actor is 53 year-old Bobby Deol (Yamla Pagla Deewana: PhirSe, Class of 83, Housefull 4). A lot of effort has been spent on his make-up, get-up, gait and look. And it pays. One cannot recall Bobby charting this kind of territory before, and it will surely make producers consider his name while doing the casting for their next films. One only hopes that he is not made to play a ruthless killer again, at least in the near future. Vikrant Massey as Ahmed is not anything if not sincere. Given rugged, tough looks, for a change, he serves a good counter-point to the trigger-happy smugglers, police and Dagar. Sanya Malhotra, playing Jyoti, who has matured from Dangal to Badhaai Ho to Ludo, looks the part and puts in the required pep, guts and gumption. But there is not much chemistry between the lead actors, especially in the intimate scenes. Details of the supporting cast were not available.

Both cinematography (Vivek Shah) and editing (Shan Mohammed) are of a high calibre, like the bores of the guns that we see by the dozens. A gruesome thriller would not work, unless these two departments are a given. The length is kept short, and the cuts are sharp, though that prevents the inclusion of more comprehensive back-stories, which are often revealed in visual symbols. Pulsating and throbbing music is credited to Clinton Cerejo and the song composer is Jeet Gannguli. There is only one song, and that goes well with the film.

It is difficult to define who would this film really appeal to. Surely not to the Khap panchayats and their followers in Haryana. Definitely not to those who have eloped or are thinking of eloping. Absolutely not to those with weak hearts. But that still leaves a lot of bachelors, spinsters and those who are hooked to video games that litter the screen with dead bodies, frame after frame. Maybe they would enjoy a visit to the Love Hostel. Giving a hint about who they are catering to, the makers have included a scene wherein a little boy walks into a hotel room to find it is full of corpses, with only Ahmed standing, all shot dead in an encounter, and exclaims, “Wow”!

I would not recommend this film to anybody under 21. It is difficult to decide whether the blood baths were incorporated after the story was finalised or whether the story was finalised around the blood baths. Both premises stand at 50:50.

Love Hostel gives an entirely different meaning to the cinematic term, ‘shooting’. See it at your own peril.

Rating: ** ½

Trailer: https://youtu.be/ma-stvAsOCU

P.S.: For heaven’s sake, do not confuse this Love Hostel with the one advertised on the travel site, Agoda.

Love Hostel - Special Rates on Agoda®