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AANKHEN (2002) ("Eyes")
Producer: Gaurang Doshi Music: Aadesh Shrivastava, Jatin-Lalit, Nitin Raikway Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Arjun Rampal, Sushmita Sen, Aditya Panscholi Running Time: 166 Minutes
CineRating: 5 out of 10
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If half the fun of any heist thriller lies in the cleverness of the heist itself, than Aankhen starts off a good ten steps ahead of the competition with its nifty premise involving a bank robbery that is to be committed by a trio of blind men. Of course, the blind men are merely pawns of a schizophrenic genius named Vijay Singh (Amitabh Bachchan), whose hair-trigger temper finally costs him his job at the bank where he so faithfully served for so many years. Vijay decides to exact revenge against his former employers by pulling off the perfect crime, which in this case means robbing their bank and getting away with it. When he spots Neha (Sushmita Sen), a teacher at a school for the blind who expertly instructs her students to overcome their limitations, Vijay decides to kidnap the woman's younger brother and force her to become his unwilling accomplice. After taking out an ad and recruiting three blind gentlemen -- Vishwas, Arjun and Ilyas (Akshay Kumar, Arjun Rampal and Paresh Rawal) -- who arrive under the impression that they are there to attend a special workshop, Vijay quietly slips into the background and allows Neha to pretend that she is a criminal mastermind who wants to train the three gents to be able to rob a bank with the same dexterity as men of normal eyesight. It will be the perfect crime if successful because no one would ever suspect blind men as being able to pull off a robbery in such a skilled manner.
It would be an understatement to say that Aankhen is high on style and low on plausibility. This may be the only serious-minded suspense thriller in cinematic history in which the villain tries to tickle someone to death. Based on Shobhana Desai's hit play, this slickly directed film has little on its mind apart from pulling off its centerpiece heist with the requisite panache. Character motivation and development, both of which could've added some meat to the film's skimpy thematic preoccupations, have all the consistency of a roulette wheel, with a final curveball tossed into the plotline for no other reason than to set up an unlikely sequel. As a result, the bank robbery itself is actually far more convincing than its build-up and aftermath. The story's set-up is overwrought, with the inciting incident for Vijay's firing (his relentless beating of a dishonest bank employee) going on far too long, while the backstory that explains how Vishwas lost his eyesight turns out to be so melodramatic as to border on the laughable. Vijay's kidnapping of Neha's brother is a convenient plot device and nothing more; it's virtually forgotten about until the very end, when the plot thread is abruptly brought back into the movie to tie up loose ends. Vipul Shah would have been better off by simply disposing of this contrived device altogether and simply turning Neha into Vijay's willing accomplice.
Still, once Neha begins instructing her sightless trio in the intricacies of armed robbery, the corny plot mechanics are largely forgiven as the film comes up with some amusingly creative training sequences. Although it's questionable as to whether someone would actually put themselves in the line of fire when teaching blind men to shoot guns with pinpoint accuracy, later sequences involving a makeshift bank setting populated with moving mannequins are perfect at capturing the premise's offbeat potential. Somewhat less successful is the sentimental bonding that sprouts up between the three blind men as well as the requisite romantic angle supplied in a perfunctory manner by Arjun and Neha. When it finally comes, the actual bank robbery itself has just enough twists and turns and a reasonably credible simulation of real-time events (even if one does wonder why nobody hits the alarm) to convince us that such derring-do might actually be possible. Unfortunately for the viewer, the film falls apart soon thereafter.
Amitabh Bachchan has played villainous roles before (Don [1978]), but Aankhen supplies him with his first full-length cinematic antagonist, and he attacks the role with the same relish that he displayed in last year's impressive Aks. Using his towering physique to his intimidating advantage, Bachchan makes Vijay Singh into an outward model of cool and elegant arrogance which masks an explosive rage within. Only problem is, Bachchan's character is relegated to the sidelines as a silent observer for much of the film's midsection, and the script completely lets him down in the third act by turning his so-called genius into a doddering imbecile. While Sushmita Sen appears equally up to the task as Vijay's reluctant partner-in-crime, the actress is also betrayed by the undernourished script, which can't decide whether she's a fragile, easily-manipulated ingenue, or a woman of remarkable patience and flexibility. In the end, she commits an act of desperation that is utterly preposterous given the circumstances at hand. Both Akshay Kumar and Arjun Rampal are perfectly acceptable in the film's more modest roles with the former playing a character who sports a rather inconsistent "sixth sense" that warns him of danger. Paresh Rawal delivers a loud comic performance which received acclaim from many critics, but more often than not merely took me out of the story.
While the opening credits song-and-dance number is imaginatively staged and thematically relevant to the plot, the three remaining numbers add next-to-nothing to the storyline, although the final musical piece ("Chalka Chalka") is a colorful extravaganza featuring a guest appearance by Kashmira Shah. To say that the movie would be better off without the song-and-dances may be pointless within the context of Bollywood cinema, but there's no denying that a tighter script could have done wonders for the movie's regrettable lack of dramatic tension.
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DVD Specs:
Video Sound DVD
All Regions
Anamorphic widescreen - 2.25:1
Removable English Subs (songs included)
No Extras
(The Aankhen DVD is sold as part of a three pack containing the Best of Khans music DVD and a promotional audio CD).
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