AANKHEN

Director: Vipul Shah
Music: Aadesh Shrivastava
Lyrics: Nitin Raikwar, Prasun Joshi & Praveen Bharadwaj
Producer: Gaurang Doshi
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Sushmita Sen, Arjun Ramphal, Bipasha Basu, Paresh Rawal and Aditya Panscholi

RS RATING: 3/10

V.R. Pictures' Aankhen is about the masterminding of a bank robbery by the bank's schizophrenic manager who is sacked from his job, for meting out inhuman treatment to his subordinates.

So as to put the police off-trail, he gets his plan of bank loot executed by three blind men. After complete training from a female trainer and plenty of rehearsals, the day of execution of the bank robbery comes. The sacked bank manager enters the bank on the marked day under the pretext of performing a puja. His aim is to supervise the entire operation.

Things go wrong on the actual location where the crime is to be committed. Being blind, the three men are quite at sea and find it difficult to control the situation. They are helped in their operation by the master-planner. But still, the bank robbery does not go about in exactly the way it was planned. At the last moment, one of the three men, who has a terrific sixth sense, changes the plan and drags a bank employee out with them instead of dragging out the dismissed bank manager-cum-mastermind.

The three then manage to keep the loot from out of the ex-bank manager's reach. The ex-bank manager becomes desperate to get the loot and, in his desperation, becomes instrumental in causing the death of one of the three blind men, as also the bank employee. He also mentally tortures the female trainer so much that she kills herself.

Ultimately, the two other thieves help the police, who is on the trail of the bank robbers, to nab the ex-bank manager. They also manage to find the loot which had been hidden at an undisclosed (to them) place by their deceased friend.

The film may be novel in thought, based as it is on a Gujarati play, Andhalo Pato, but the novelty looks too contrived to make much film sense. The idea of a person thinking of employing three blind men to carry out a difficult task like a bank robbery is quite weird. If he was so scared of the police nabbing him, he should have made a more fool-proof plan, not a crazy one like this.

The argument for the weird plan would be that the master-planner is schizophrenic, but how many among the audience would appreciate this? Further, even a child would know that it is one thing to plan and rehearse a bank robbery and quite another thing to actually execute it in the midst of hundreds of bank employees and customers present in the bank - more so, when the three people who would be carrying out the robbery are blind men. But the ex-bank manager, despite all his super-intelligence, is not able to understand this simple logic.

The bank manager's desperation when he is not able to lay his hands on the loot is not quite understandable. His intention, after his dismissal, was to ruin the bank. That aim is achieved the moment the bank is looted. Rather than hankering after the loot, the intelligent guy should have let the robbers take it. This would never have endangered his life because the police may never have known that he had masterminded the bank robbery. By running after the loot, he led the police to nab himself.

Even when the police is investigating the matter, its query to the ex-bank manager about why he was at the training camp with the alleged bank robbers is left unanswered.

That was too simplistic an approach because that itself was a big proof that he was in some way or the other involved in the crime. But the police realises this after quite a while and after several scenes, which, therefore, are actually redundant. It also seems quite unbelievable that an intelligent person like him would not have planned his safety or escape when he could plan the almost unachievable.

The film leaves the viewer with no exciting feeling. That's because, almost everyone's a loser. The ex-bank manager craves for the loot but gets nabbed by the police instead. The trainer trains the three blind men so that she can free her kid-brother from the ex-bank manager's custody, but she kills herself before that.

The blind man, who is driven to his death by the ex-bank manager, was keen on spending his life in luxury after the bank manager would have paid them their fees, but he dies before that. The two blind men rejoice in the end, for having finally laid their hands on the loot even though their motive was never to become so rich. In fact, the very reason for one of the three blind men to change the plan of action at the last moment was that he had a feeling that the man behind the master plan was not a good person.

Which means, if the master planner had got the loot, it would have been wrong, but if the blind men got it, it is right.

As is evident from the above, the film abounds in flaws (writers Aatish Kapadia and Vipul Shah). Yet another drawback is that it moves on just one track and gets boring after a point of time. Scenes are repetitive especially in the second half. The film is devoid of romance and emotions.

Making Amitabh Bachchan play an out-and-out negative role (of the master planner) and two handsome heroes, Akshay Kumar and Arjun Rampal, blind men is too much for the basically traditional audience to handle and there are plenty of such traditional cinegoers. There is also quite a lot of gore in the film, which will keep the women from patronising the film in a big way.

The climax, in which Amitabh Bachchan is nabbed by the police, is quite tame and fails to excite the viewer. Overall, while the pre-interval portion is quite entertaining for its comedy mainly, the post-interval part is tedious, repetitive and boring too. The plan is so difficult that how differently its actual execution is taking shape from the original plan is not very clear -something which comes in the way of the viewer's enjoyment. Dialogues (Aatish Kapadia) are good at places and superb in comedy scenes.

Amitabh Bachchan does very well as the schizophrenic and dismissed bank manager possessed by the desire to seek revenge. His facial expressions are fantastic. But despite his wonderful acting, many of his fans would feel let down by the negative role.

Akshay Kumar gets less scope but performs beautifully. He is superb in the bus accident stunt. Arjun Rampal looks fresh and also acts well, but his romantic angle with Sushmita Sen looks forced. Sushmita Sen impresses with a convincing show. Her death is unwarranted. Paresh Rawal is extraordinary in the comedy scenes. His dialogues are the best. The scenes of his eyes bleeding are quite sickening. His death comes as an unwanted shock.

The Gujarati character in the bank is very natural. Delnaaz and her boyfriend are cute. Ajit Vachhani is alright. Aditya Pancholi is average. The scenes between him and Amitabh Bachchan should have been far, far more dramatic and if they aren't so, it is largely because of Aditya's performance lacking fire and also because he doesn't match up to Amitabh's status and image. The rest are okay.

Vipul Shah's direction leaves plenty to be desired. He has not been able to co-write an engrossing script and, what's more, his narration is also not simple enough for the average cinegoer to comprehend. His shot compositions and execution are not very appropriate. Actually, the plot itself was not suitable for a film.

Music is good (though not hit), but there are too few songs. 'Gustakhiyan', 'Phatela jeb' and 'Chhalka chhalka' are good numbers. Picturisation of 'Gustakhiyan' on Akshay Kumar and Bipasha Basu is rich and eye-pleasing. The 'Chhalka chhalka' song, picturised on Kashmira Shah, is mass-appealing. The 'Phatela jeb' number will be liked in Bombay only. Background score is very fine. Action scenes are good. Ashok Mehta's camerawork is exceptionally good. Production values are grand. Technically, so-so.

On the whole, Aankhen lacks entertainment value for the masses, except in its comedy. Since it is a single-track film and not very engrossing, it will not find favour with the audience. Business in Bombay and Maharashtra would be somewhat better. In most of the other circuits, it will give the distributors teary eyes.

REVIEWED BY KOMAL NAHTA