Pitaah is pitiful; Raaz has no secrets

Sukanya Verma

After Vaastav and Kurukshetra, the hard-hitting duo of Mahesh Manjerekar and Sanjay Dutt are back with another powerful drama -- Pitaah.

Given that the subject is of serious nature, the music mostly treads the classical path infused with high-pitched histrionics.

The album kick starts with the spine-chilling rendition of a shloka about putra pratishtha rendered beautifully by Ravindra Sathe and Rahul Ranade.

The title song, in the voice of Udit Narayan, fails to impress. However, Sukhwinder Singh comes up with a winner in Sau baar janam nahi milta. This high voltage track is in perfect sync with the theme of Pitaah.

Anand Raaj Anand concocts his own Thaat nawabi, baat, nawabi (Indian) into the frivolous Nadiya kinare by Sonu Nigam and Kavita Krishnamurthy.

Raunchiness drips in every bit of Rama bachaye, sung by the husky voiced Anuradha Sriram, who specialises in item songs.

Another song added to please the frontbenchers is the crude Meri jawani. Sunidhi Chauhan does a Ila Arun whilst mouthing explicit stuff like 'Meri jawani kisko milegi, tujhko milegi ya usko milegi' (who will get my youth, you or him?). Sheesh!

And there’s more. A mujra number in the form of Humko to ishq by Kavita Krishnamurthy. Suffice to say it’s nothing like the songs in Umrao Jaan.

In a nutshell, baring a couple of tracks, Pitaah sticks to formula music.

What Lies Beneath appears to be director Vikram Bhatt's favourite film. If in his last flick Kasoor, the climax was lifted from the Harrison Ford-Michelle Pfeiffer thriller, his latest Raaz is said to be entirely inspired from it.

As far as the music by Nadeem Shravan goes, Raaz, starring real life couple Bipasha Basu and Dino Morea, is bland and uninspiring.

The eight tracks sound so alike that one cannot figure out when the album begins and when it ends.

The lilting Jo bhi kasmein by Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan is the only saving grace. Yagnik features next with Abhijeet in the unimaginatively composed Tum agar Samne.

Up next is a rehashed version of Zindagi ban gaye ho tum (Kasoor) -- Aapke pyaar mein. Kitna pyara hai and Itna main chahoon sound like an extension of the other.

Udit Narayan and Sarika Kapoor get upbeat with Mujhe teri jaisi, while Abhijeet showers compliments in Pyaar se pyaar hum. No great shakes.

Too add to your woes is Yeh shaher. Annoying at the very outset, this lackluster ditty by an unimpressive Jolly Mukherjee, Suzzan and Bali Brahmabhatt is a complete no-no.

Credits in the inlay cover of the audio aver 'A magical score by Nadeem Shravan and Sameer'. Instead, the music of Raaz is a blasé attempt at recreating decent tunes.