Rakht (2004) - Review in English

About the story: Since her early childhood, Drishti (Bipasha Basu) is gifted with visions which let her look into the future; but yet she could not prevent her husband from dying with an accident. Now she brings up her little son Arjun alone and earns a part of her livings as fortune teller. Two men are seeking her friendship: mentally disabled mechanic Mohit (Suniel Shetty) and schoolmaster Rahul (Sanjay Dutt) who is engaged with Natasha (Amrita Arora), the young and fun-loving daughter of mayor Raj Bahadir Singh (Sharat Saxena). When Natasha disappears without a trace, Drishti, due to a vision, can give ACP Ranveer (Rajat Bedi) a hint thanks to which the girl’s dead body is found in a lake. Under suspicion is violent Sunil Tehan, called Sunny (Dino Morea) who regularly ill-treats his wife Rhea (Neha Dhupia) and had an affair with Natasha. Though Sunny claims to be innocent, public persecutor Abhigyan Gupta (Himanshu Malik) succeeds in getting him pronounced guilty and sentenced to lifetime imprisonment. But now Drishti gets one vision after the other, all of them indicating clearly that the murderer still is at large...


Rakht is a combination of crime story, thriller and spine-chiller and as such works quite well; just don’t spoil the tension and fast-forward to the end even if you’re dying to know who’s the murderer – you would spoil the whole film as it for the most subsists on the search for Natasha’s murderer. Amrita Arora is very good as a right little hussy, and Neha Dhupia also delivers an appalling performance as the mistreated wife. Leading lady, however, is Bipasha Basu, and hats off – her portrait of the fortune teller tortured by visions is convincing, a successful and credible combination of self-secure worldly wisdom and fearful panic.

Outstanding in the male squad are Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty and Dino Morea. Sanjay, for a change, plays a quiet and considerate character in Rakht, therefore zeroes his energies in on Rahul’s inner tension and thus makes him sovereign and credible. Dino Morea, on the other hand, can give free reign to his energy as the sadistic husband who not only beats up his wife but also threatens Drishti and Arjun; a really convincing rotter. Suniel Shetty had the most difficult part as to play mentally disabled people easily misleads to (unbelievable) overacting. But at the most, Suniel controls himself very well and thus also has the audience by his side – until he in a shocking scene settles old accounts with his father; one of several shock moments director Manjrekar spreads out in his film, sometimes like a flash, sometimes extended. Rakht is, all in all, okay but no film where you can just lean back and enjoy, except when in between Abhishek Bachchan appears as Manav, Drishti’s friend of her youth – a special appearance which is nice but, with all due respect, was not necessary.

Produced by Cine Blitz Productions Pvt. Ltd.; Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar
150 Min.; DVD: Videosound, English Subtitles (including songs), once some of them appear much to early and you should keep them in mind to understand the next scene...
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