One Cool Movie. Review on Rakht

Rakhthas all the elements of a horror film - supernatural, eerie and uncanny, but along the course slowly evolves into a murder mystery. Director Mahesh Manjrekar has toyed with an altogether different genre with this movie.

The Story

Rakht is a story of how a tarot card reader, who also has the power to see the future, ultimately solves a murder mystery. Drishti (Bipasha Basu) plays the tarot card reader, who is a widow and mother of an 8-year old boy. She helps people with their difficulties by reading cards and 'looking' into the future.

Rhea (Neha Dhupia) comes to her place regularly as she gets beaten up everyday by her husband, Sunny (Dino Morea), and can't decide whether she should live with him or not. But Sunny can't tolerate Rhea's visiting to Drishti's place, and calls Drishti a witch.

Rahul (Sanjay Dutt), is Drishti's son's school teacher, who also has a soft corner for Drishti. He is also the would-be mayor and fiancé of Natasha (Amrita Arora), who in turn is the daughter of the city's mayor (Sharat Saxena).

Then there's Mohit (Suniel Shetty), who is a car mechanic and who also is Drishti's friend. He is eccentric as his childhood was rough, and he hates his father for this.

Things take a strange turn, when Natasha goes missing for quite some time, and Drishti is asked to find out where she is. Drishti tells the police (Rajat Bedi plays the police officer) that Natasha has been murdered and her body is lying in a lake which is located inside Sunny's property. And so Sunny is convicted, but the actual culprit is someone else....

Performance

Bipasha Basu has completely changed her image in this film, and plays a character of substance, around whom the story revolves. She has performed excellently. Suniel Shetty was convincing as an eccentric mechanic, Sanjay Dutt did justice to his role. Amrita Arora's performance was also good, and Dino Morea surprised me. Others, Shasikala, Shivaji Satam, Sharat Saxena, Rajat Bedi, all were good. Himanshu wasn't up to the mark, but Sachin Khedekar looked convincing as the defence lawyer. Abhishek Bachchan had nothing to do with his bit of role.

Behind the Lens

Direction was simply superb. Mahesh Manjrekar had kept the whodunit alive till the last moment. Sandeep Chowta's background score also made the movie more scary. Rakht is one such movie which even scared the hell out of me!!! Special Effects deserves a special mention.

Music was totally unnecessary for this film. Though there are only three songs, but Yana Gupta's item number 'Oh What a Babe' was absolutely unnecessary.

Review

Rakht's theme is not new though, it has been previously used in 100 Days(Madhuri Dixit, Jackie Shroff; Madhuri was a clairvoyant, who could see beyond the senses). But this concept is also not alien, neither is it false. Even I can sometime 'see' what will happen in the future (though I don't remember it unless that event actually happens!). Plotwise, storywise Rakht gets full marks.

But the film is pretty slow-paced, and it shows in the first half. Despite this, the film brings about an eerie atmosphere and the viewer gets sucked into its storyline. The film should be seen by anybody and everybody who loves supernatural themes and horror flicks. The weak-hearted may stay out...