Story:

A thriller told feebly, the story begins with the life of Subhas (Paresh) who is a struggling yet aspiring actor and he has been trying hard to get into movies but in vain. However, his life takes a turn when he comes across an injured man one night. He happens to be one time big producer Adenwallah (Naseeruddin Shah) and right now he is an alcoholic unable to quench the thirst of money from his wife Mallika (Neha). However, he is touched by Subhas's kind gesture and takes him in as his driver much to the disliking of Mallika. However, Adenwallah's troubles continue with Mallika until one day he kills himself. He leaves behind an insurance policy worth Rs 24 crores but then that is entitled to his wife only if it had been a murder not a suicide. Now, Subhas teams up with the conning Mallika and with the help of the lawyer AD Merchant (Boman) they hatch a plan to show this as murder. In this, they take the help of Swati (Tara) as the caretaker for Adenwallah. However, things don't go as per plan and in come the duo of ACP Gokhale (Om Puri) and inspector Borkar (Vivek Shauq). What happens from there forms the rest of the story.

Presentation:

The director has come out with an adaptation of the play and the difference was quite obvious when it came on screen. Though the presentation was perfect, the narrative lacked the gravity of the plot or the desired shock points. The script was the culprit as it was written weakly, the screenplay was alright but not convincing. The dialogues were sometimes engaging and the music was just about okay. The camera department deserves full credit for capturing the moments excellently. Editing was lost somewhere in between. The songs could have been avoided and caused disturbance to the plot. Paresh Rawal was his perfect best, Neha Dhupia was stunningly hot, Naseeruddin Shah was top notch but his character was weakly written, Tara Sharma was cute, Boman Irani was mind blowing, Om Puri was not utilized to his fullest potential. Vivek's presence is not felt amongst these titans.

Conclusion:

There is a stark difference between a play and pure cinema. This was seen clearly in this product as the first half was stale and slow with mundane activity and nothing to capture the moods but then it is the second half that things really pick up the heat and given the mighty presence of the stars involved, there are points where you tend to get affected. The script was haphazard and this resulted in the movie going wrong at key points. The star cast might pull this to an extent but it might take an external factor or a positive word of mouth to push the film to a decent returns mark.

Bharatstudent Verdict: Can be watched for the starcast...