Rakht !!!

Bipasha Basu .... Drishti
Sanjay Dutt .... Rahul
Dino Morea .... Sunny
Neha Dhupia .... Rhea
Sunil Shetty .... Mohit
Amrita Arora .... Natasha

Director : Mahesh Manjrekar



A suspence thriller with supernatural tones, pillared with a good range of stars from Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Bipasha Basu, Amrita Arora, Neha Dhupia, Dino Morea to camoes by Abhishek Bachchan and Yana Gupta, Rakht appears to have all the necesarry ingredients of a gripping Bollywood flick.

The strong point of the movie is its realistic presentation by director Mahesh Manjrekar and its colorful cast that keeps adding momentum to a farely decent story with their convincing portrayal of their characters.

Bipasha Basu plays a tarot card reader Drishti, who has an incredible abilty to predict future with her cards and forsee certain incidents much before they actually happen. She is a widow with an 8-year-old boy.

Among Drishti's clients is Rhea (Neha Dhupia), who is an abused wife seeking some help to find solution to her husband Sunny's (Dino Morea) violent behaviour. Drishti advises Rhea to leave her husband. Her advice only angers Rhea's husband and he threatens Drishti with dire consequences if she did not stop counselling his wife.

Mohit [Suniel Shetty] is a car mechanic, who is emotionally inclined towards Drishti. He is a slightly eccentric man because of his troubled childhood.

Rahul (an unsuitable name for Sanjay Dutt's character) is the principal of a school and is engaged to a beautiful woman named Natasha (Amrita Arora). Natasha is a fast girl with a sensuous demeanour. She is committed to Rahul. But then, she is also spotted in the embrace of a young man named Abhigyan (Himanshu Malik) at a party.

One night after a late party, Natasha goes missing. No one has any clue to where she is or what happened to her. Rahul seeks Drishti's help to find her.

As the threads of many stories come together before Drishti, and as more blood is spilled, the face of the killer begins to come together gradually before her till the finale when the killer stands exposed.

Rakht's strength lies in its progressive story that keeps engaging a viewer more and more as it moves towards a climax which, sorry to say, is a bit of a letdown. Besides this, Mahesh Manjrekar has made an overuse of background sounds and music, which, although skillfully composed by Sandeep Chowta, domiates the visuals at times rather than supporting it.

Convincing performances by Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu stand out among the fairly average acting by others. Sunil Shetty puts energy into some scenes with his presence, while Sanjay Dutt looks subdued.

On the whole, Rakht is a watchable flick with its shares of ups and downs. The movie's 'slow-than-usual' pace may not go well with certain viewers. Others will be impressed by the authencity with which Manjreakar creates an eerie and spooky ambience on the screen.

Good