Almost there!. Review on Humraaz

According to me there are 3 kinds of thrillers. The first is the fast paced, edge of the seat thriller like Broken Arrow. The second type are the little slow but thanks to fantastic screenplay and direction, extremely gripping thrillers like The Perfect Murder. The last type are an amalgamation of the first two , movies like Baazigar and Gupt. Sadly, Humraaz just about fails to make it to either of the three types.

karan (Akshay Khanna) & Priya (Amisha Patel) are lovers and partners in a dance troupe lobbying hard for a entertainment contract aboard the Star Cruise. Due to foul play by their rivals at the audition, they lose the contract but Karan is not the sort to take such nonsense and in a fit of rage murders the lead dancer of the rival troupe to ultimately bag the prestigious contract. The Star Cruise is one of the business ventures of mr. money bags Raj Singhania (Bobby Deol). Raj meets Priya on the ship and is smitten by her. Priya also befriends him and one fine day Raj proposes marriage to her. Priya coolly accepts the proposal and celebrates with her boy-friend Karan. The whole thing was a plan to make Raj fall in love with Priya so Karan and Priya could get ultimately get married (after Priya divorces Raj) and enjoy a luxurious life. Priya marries Raj and everything goes according to plan until slowly Priya begins to actually fall in love with Raj. By the time Priya decides to abandon Karan and their dangerous game it's too late as her husband Raj comes to know of the whole story. This is where the movie takes off on lines of the Micheal Douglas - Gwyenth Paltrow starrer The Perfect Murder. I guess almost everyone has watched this hollywood movie so I really don't need to say what happens next and if you haven't seen it then you could go and check out Humraaz.

The problem with this movie is that the first half is too slow and liberally peppered with songs. Since Priya and Karan are members of a dance troupe, a few songs were probably justified but the wedding and the mandatory romantic duet between Bobby and Amisha just slow down the pace of the movie. The editor should have been made to use his skills better and the direction could be a little more grippy. Sure the movie picks up in the second half but the last 45 mins are a take off from The Perfect Murder, so people who have seen that movie will not find anything thrilling or suspenseful.

Bobby Deol as Raj Singhania looks every bit the business tycoon he is supposed to be in the movie. A very cool and smooth performance by him is one of the highlights of the movie.

Amisha Patel as Priya looks as delicious as apple pie and barring a few jitters, her performance is pretty smooth. Probably she could do with a little bit of voice modulation but then it's just her fourth movie.

Akshay Khanna as karan comes up with a smashing performance as the cool calculating villain. He is totally in command with his character and his performance is flawless. Probably bollywood has found a new and extremely good villain and I hope Akshay doesn't chicken out of doing more negative roles. Come on Akshay, it's no fun being a good guy every time.

Director duo Abbas-Mastan once again stick to their forte and almost manage to come up trumps. Their direction has always been good and this time they falter because their movie has too many songs, a lazy editor and a story writer who saw a DVD of The Perfect Murder.

A special applause for the extremely slick credits in the beginning of the movie. The credits are as good as the ones seen in Shaan and Gupt. I guess the slick credits were what raised my expectations and even the movie is pretty slick and technically very well accomplished but sadly the songs killed this movie. Kudos to the back-ground score too.

The reason I still recommend this movie is because it offers something different from the Yash Chopra-karan Johar-Sooraj Barjatya brand of crap thats being dished out in the last couple of months by every director in bollywood. The biggest pro of this movie is that it doesn't have 40 something's behaving like love struck teenagers whose only aim in life is to fall in love and get married. This movie could have been more entertaining and gripping but it still tries to offer us a thriller and the producers , directors and actors of this movie almost managed to do it.