Beyond Honor

Raised in Mumbai, classically trained actor-turned-writer-director Khanna addresses the volatile issue of women's rights within Islamic households, and if his sensationalistic debut feature makes its point with a heavy hand, it's also starkly effective.

Though it can't hide occasionally crude dramatics, pic is an undeniably bold and daring tragedy.

This mélange of softcore porn, overheated melodrama, and harrumphing moralizing transcends taste--its lurid insanity goes beyond good and bad, right and wrong.

Melodramatic and heavy-handed.

Terrible movies about trivial subjects are commonplace and inconsequential, but a terrible movie that grapples with potentially inflammatory subject matter is far worse, because its aspirations are higher - which makes the failure of Varun Khanna's moralistic drama all the more spectacular.

As the movie turns into a shrill revenge tragedy, complexity is discarded. The characters might as well be stapled to Popsicle sticks.

Featuring one-note characterizations, laughable dialogue, an overwrought musical score and technically poor filmmaking values, the film ultimately is utterly reprehensible.