The premise and subject about making a criminal realize what his victims went through by capturing his family hostage sounds promising and interesting. But this is the only interesting part which was also dealt 20 years ago with quite finesse by director Ravi Tandon in his film "Jawab'(1985) too. The problem here is Ace Director Rajkumar Santoshi found himself in some sort of confusion as to whether to make it a fast paced action-thriller (viz. Khakee) or an emotions-rich heavy duty drama (Viz. Damini) and this confusion is quite evident in the final outcome. If we ignore two of his-Pukar (2000) and Lajja(2001), this brilliant director has always given us fairly engrossing films with high entertainment value. Therefore this film comes as a surprise, as to what made this script sensitive director going for half-baked characterization of both of his protagonists-Amitabh Bachchan and Aryeman. As the film is getting over, audience didn't know whom to hate and whom to sympathize with and this factor is the major limiting force in the complete narration. Therefore what starts as a war between a common man and an underworld don ends on a strange note of self-realization and regret by the Don about what went wrong with his own family. The revelation of Don's son as a real baddie does not come as a surprise element in the climax which if compared to similar situation in 'Khakee" worked so effectively with Aishwarya's character. That is not all, there is more to it. The whole dramatization of life of an Underworld Don, operating from abroad looks quite illogical. His openly landing up at Mumbai from where he is suppose to be absconding as well as running after his enemies and shooting them himself does not look believable. Pitching a mediocre, newcomer actor like Aryeman opposite Mr. Bachchan is again not a good idea. But nonetheless film has some plus points. Ashok Mehta's fine camera-work, two good fight sequences (co-ordinator Abbas Ali Moughal), some light well-acted scenes of Akshay Kumar in the Ist half, Santoshi's fast-paced slick treatment and of course Mr. Bachchan as usual trying hard to put some life into his lifeless character. But all these put together does not make this viewing an exciting experience for you and your Family!
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