Sangharsh

Ohh yes... I came here to see Ashutosh Rana's performance and he doesn't disappointed me as well. I have already watched Silence of the lambs but still I got a good experience with this movie. It's music was pure 90s nostalgia for me because I am also a boy of 90s. So yeah! Good movie to watch and 7 out of 10 stars from my side.

Often looked down upon as a Hindi remake of The Silence of the Lambs, Sangharsh will always be remembered for Ashutosh Rana's menacing portrayal of Lajja Shankar Pandey--a religious fanatic who slaughters children with the hope of gaining immortality. Such was the raw intensity in his portrayal of a disgusting child killer that it pretty much sealed the fate of his acting career as a villain. Yes, extremes often don't go well with the Indian audiences. In Dushman, his previous outing, he had played a rapist and a killer but here he seems to have gone a bit too far. Besides, strong negative roles are not easy to come by in Hindi cinema. So, we never get to see the same Ashutosh Rana again on the celluloid! The loss, of course, was entirely ours.

In Sangharsh, Akshay Kumar too delivers the finest performance of his acting career. Playing the complex part of the quick-witted Professor Aman Varma, Akshay seems to be exploring a completely different side of his acting repertoire. For once, he lets his eyes do most of the talking. The scenes he shares with Preity Zinta are quite solid. It is a pity that some of them are directly borrowed from The Silence of the Lambs. Nonetheless, the acting efforts are commendable. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was Preity Zinta who had started the trend of playing strong female characters in Hindi cinema; and it all started with Sangharsh wherein she plays a gritty CBI Officer.

Overall, Sangharsh is a very difficult film to watch. It's uncommon for Hindi films to have such high graphic content. Rana's ferality, Akshay's intensity and Preity's vulnerability make it a memorable film. The climactic sequence featuring the trio is both scary and adrenaline-pumping. The songs, although they are very good, somewhat compromise the movie's suspense element. Also, the romance between Akshay and Preity looks a bit out of place. But there is no denying that it's presented in a refreshing manner. Sangharsh is not meant for the faint-hearted. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

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This is actually a rather risible remake of Demme's Silence of the Lambs (1991). Although the prison scenes are very similar and there are some suitably grisly scenes of violence, it does not adhere particularly closely to the model. It is not easy, for instance, to imagine Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster dancing a duet as Ashkay Kumar and Preity Zinta do, he dressed as Zorro and she in a pretty white frock - under the noses of the police they are supposedly hiding from!! This makes the film, in many ways quite a slick professional production, sound rather more awful than it is, but even on a charitable judgement it is pretty bad....

First thing if you have watched Silence of the Lambs (like I did) you will criticize this movie a lot. If you have not seen that movie you might think Sangharsh has something new to offer.

Preity Zinta has a bubbly personality but she could not live to the role which Jodi Foster played to perfection. Preity's fear, shock expressions were not good stand alone and bad compared to Foster's expressions.

Akshay Kumar is a nice actor but I feel he was not guided well in his role. It seems the director here did not have any clear vision of what kind of personality he would give him. sometimes he is calm other times he is jumping like a joker or screaming. It was really annoying. Anthony Hopkinz was a force of power in the original, calm scary personality. That first scene when Foster visits him in the jail and how he humiliates her is incredible. The Indian version is so bad. actually very very bad.

Ashutush Rana is creepy but his creep was not exploited. He was wasted in that role. they should have given him a creepy chilling atmosphere. Indian filmmakers do not know how to create such spooky atmosphere. In that scene where he wears a saree he reminded me of actress Silk Smitha. They look similar a bit specially the eyes.

I don't understand what are songs doing in such movie? they clearly kill the main theme and give lots of cheese to it.

Overall Sangharsh is not a good experience. Not in direction, acting, cinematography or even as a remake. The movie dies the same way Akshay Kumar's character dies while in the original Hannibal Lector lives and continues into other films and Silence of the Lambs will always remain one of the best chilling movies, while Sangharsh will be the shameful remake of it.

My final verdict is 40/100

It could have been far better if it doesn't follow typical bollywood old fashioned excitement on the girl the hero loves. If there is no love between the two protagonists, it could be near great. It deserve 4, but additional 3 comes for Asutosh Rana, the brilliance.