The Film: Deewangee
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Akshaye Khanna, Urmila Matondkar, Seema Biswas, Farida Jalal, Vijayendra Ghathge, Neelam and Nirmal Pandey
Director: Anees Bazmee
Producer: Nitin Manmohan- Neha Arts
Music: Ismail Darbar
Lyrics: Salim Bijnori, Nusrat Badr
Score: * * *

At these bad times that Bollywood is facing even lifting story ideas from Hollywood like in this movie makes more sense as compared to churning stupid formula flicks. Deewangee.s story has been lifted from Primal Fear. Check the below link to see their similarities. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/PrimalFear-1070992/about.php

It is easy to lift story ideas but not so easy to execute them. Luckily Bazmee is not here to waste our precious three hours, though he fails to grip you like he manages in the first half but the overall product is good.

The first half of the movie is absolutely brilliant. Very good pace and equally good narration. The court room scenes are dramatic and highly interesting. Not a single minute I got bored - it was only the songs that.s when I started looking around here and there! Ismail Darbar has composed some of the worst tracks in his career. He also does an over dose of Kavita who sunds mundane with her style of singing after each song.

On the whole the movie sure grips you and is one of the better entertaining films made this year.

The story:

Dynamic and successful criminal lawyer Raj Goyal (Akshaye Khanna) thinks he has it all figured out. An idealistic crusader of justice, Raj is equally committed in punishing the guilty as he is in protecting the rights of the innocent.

His involvement in his work is complete, ruling out any inclination of falling in love. But all this changes when he meets Sargam (Urmila Matondkar), a popular singer with several hit albums to her credit.

Through Sargam, Raj comes across Tarang Bharadwaj (Ajay Devgan), a talented musician. Tarang, Sargam's childhood friend and mentor, is a victim of circumstance, caught red-handed at the scene of a brutal and heinous murder.

The victim is music magnate Ashwin Mehta (Vijayendra Ghatge), found dead in his house, with multiple stab wounds. The violent nature of the murder implies a crime of extreme hate and vengeance. Sargam believes in Tarang's innocence and requests Raj to defend him.

Raj and Tarang have nothing in common, but in the course of putting up a strong defense, Raj's investigations bring him close to Tarang. It starts out as an open and shut case about proving his client's innocence, but in order to exonerate his client, Raj must find the real killer.

Before he realizes it, Raj gets entangled in a mystery more dangerous than anyone can imagine.

There are plenty surprises in store in this film, perhaps I would do justice to this review if I don.t reveal much.

On the acting front all marks go to Ajay Devgan who has given an award winning performance here. To confuse you, I can say that he plays a double role in this film! Also something like the Milli Vanilli situation will arise in the film. Watch and you will know what I was talking about!!

Urmilla is good but one wished she was given more than just dancing tunes to her credit in this film.

The 1st half itself is like an entire movie, if it was Hollywood - the movie would have ended there. But since Hindi films are for 3 hours, the director stretches a bit too much in the post interval.

The movie is not without glitches. Can you imagine Ajay flying from one platform to another.

One wonders why Urmilla kept quite for so long when she could have declared who she liked the most.

But overlooking these faults one sees a more powerful performance and easily ignores them. The movie may prove to be a hit, but one only wished if the music was good like that of Humraaz and Raaz.