Movie Review: Aakrosh

During the Dussera festivities of 2005 in Jhanjhar, a village in Bihar, an young girl moves away from her family and gets into a car with three young men. When she sets outs on this journey, she stumbles upon the temple priest. The temple priest alerts her family immediately. The men in her family chases them. Two months after this incident, three men are still missing. As they belong to a  medical college in Delhi, the students agitate. As a result, the case of missing students is handed over to CBI.

Siddhant Chaturvedi(Akshaye Khanna) and Pratap Kumar(Ajay Devgn) arrive in Jhanjhar to investigate this case. Siddhant is the lead investigator who has worked on two high profile cases in the past and successfully convicted the criminals whereas Pratap is deputed from the army to CBI. Their first visit is to the police station. Siddhant is in for a shock to see how the local police operate. SP Ajatshatru Singh(Paresh Rawal) is a corrupt and laidback officer. After meeting with Ajatshatru’s boss, they try vainly to find the uncle of one of the missing men. The missing man’s family and neighbors do not co-operate with the Siddhant and Pratap. How they go about solving the case in an overly hostile environment forms the rest of the story.

“Filmed” by Priyadarshan, this movie offers thrilling moments but fails to give an overall thrilling experience. The movie borrows the premise of three missing men, bigotry in men and difficulty faced by the investigators from the popular Hollywood movie “Mississippi Burning”. The screenplay is the culprit wherein the pace of the movie dips by the introduction of songs and the way in which the crucial witness comes around in a convenient way. Also, Shool Sena which is a take off on the KKK from the original movie was childish. Luckily, this track is not explored further. Priyadarshan and his technical team – DOP Thiru, Editor Arun Kumar, Art Director Sabu Cyril and Background Score provider Ouseppachan – shows their brilliance in many parts of the movie. The action scenes – parkour inspired chase sequence, the escape on cycle(inspired again from Malayalam movie Meesha Madahavan) and the vehicle chase with Akshaye driving and Ajay standing on top of the jeep - stand out.

Ajay Devgn underplays his role in his characteristic style. Akshaye Khanna is perfect as the officer who will do things by the book. Paresh Rawal goes back to his roots, playing the villain and humoring us throughout the movie. Bipasha Basu and Reema Sen has miniscule roles.

Watch it on DVD.

Language: Hindi

Genre: Thriller

Rating: **

Picture Courtesy: Bollywood Hungama

Tags: Movies,Ajay Devgn,Akshaye Khanna,Paresh Rawal,Priyadarshan,Thriller