Desi Sharon Stone, anyone? In "Sheesha" Neha Dhupia plays the modern-day version of the good twin-bad twin saga that Rakhee had pulled off in Subodh Mukherjee's "Sharmilee" more than three decades ago.
Siya is love, Riya is lust, and the rest is one huge libidinous cat-and-mouse game with the mute Riya posing as Siya to get her sister's man into bed.
Be it a case of sinister-in-law or routine raunchiness at sleek Bangkok locations, every component in "Sheesha" screams with an energetic eroticism.
If Dhupia displayed a certain aesthetic provocativeness in "Julie", she has pulled out all the stops in her role in "Sheesha".
The new fast-paced narrative and the over-saturated soundtrack create an unambiguous, orgiastic quality as leading actor Sonu Sood (akin to Shashi Kapoor in "Sharmilee") struggles manfully in an ill-written role.
It's rather absurd to suppose that a man would sleep with his horny sister-in-law in the mistaken belief that she's his wife.
To Sood, however, goes the credit for playing the first full-blown male sex object in Hindi cinema. The last time a screen vamp made her libidinous intent so clear was Helen to Rajesh Khanna in "Mere Jeevan Saathi" 30 years ago.
For some strange reason, Bangkok is shot to like Mumbai, complete with vast stretches of automobile-dotted highways and sleepy skyscrapers shrouded in neon brightness.
The tussle between good and evil has some unintended moments of hilarity, though.
An Anglo-Saxon actress gets bludgeoned by Riya - a heavy price for swimming in an alarmingly brief bikini.
Some stunts in crowded places in Bangkok are staged with a confident perkiness and the climactic showdown on a helipad does make you sit up in your seat.
In all fairness, "Sheesha" is packaged with more care than other recent sleaze fests recently.
