Aankhen

When Vijay Singh Rajput, a quirky, honest and extremely strict bank manager finds one of his employees trying to con a customer, he completely loses his temper and brutally beats him. As a result he is fired from his job. A broken and angry Rajput, who has given all his life to this bank, is decisive to take revenge, and what can be a better way to take revenge if not rob the bank itself? His plan is further progressed when he meets Neha, a teacher at a blind school. Rajput decides to use Neha to fulfill his plan, and he kidnaps her young brother to blackmail her. He then finds the ultimate team of three blind men: Vishwas, Arjun and Ilias. What happens next is what forms the film's suspense.

That's the basic story of Aankhen, a highly enjoyable and twisted thriller which is quite cleverly scripted. The film's concept is rather unusual for Hindi movies, and even though the story is hard to believe, the film is captivating and is generally well developed and convincingly made. Aspects that contribute to it include the great cinematography, the effective editing, the witty dialogues, and the unpredictable proceedings. The film is not without its flaws, and at times it really lacks depth and focus. The character of Rajput is particularly faulty in this regard. Towards the end, after the robbery scene everyone was much awaiting happens, the film loses its balance, and the ending is quite disappointing.

Aankhen is well acted, and of course Amitabh Bachchan excels in his negative role which allows him to have fun with his character's inexplicable nature. Akshay Kumar is very good as the sensible and intelligent Vishwas, and Arjun Rampal is well cast as the kindhearted Arjun. The film, however, has two actors who utterly steal the show, and they are Sushmita Sen and Paresh Rawal. Sen is outstanding as the tormented and vulnerable Neha, and Rawal is also superb in a wonderful comic role which is both funny and touching. What I liked about the film is that every character was given a story of its own, thus making easy to understand their motives to do what they did.

In a few words, Aankhen is very good Hindi entertainment, and in spite of its flaws manages to be a good watch with family and friends.

That pretty much sums it up. As heist thrillers go, this is a pretty solid movie. The lengthy time actually works in its favor, because it allows the main characters to be fully fleshed out. Unless you're David Mamet, it's pretty hard to do a 90 minute heist movie and have you care about the people involved. From an American perspective, this movie is quite fresh, both in the concept and the lack of American stereotypes (there's no young punk, retired thief returning for one last score, or anything like that here.) Also, the tension level is excellently done. That said, there are some major credibility issues; you can buy something like "Heist" working, but "Aankhen" it's best to turn your brain off. This is more along the lines of something like "To Catch a Thief"; you don't buy it but the ride's so much fun you don't care.

The directing by Vipul Shah definitely deserves kudos on the visual end and with the actors; the director uses both the foreground AND the background, unconcerned with what's in focus and what isn't (and in fact drops in a few jokes), and the framing is quite precise. Even when he's constrained by the necessity of suddenly making a music video, he does his best. The acting isn't perfect, but the actors are convincing in their handicapped and Amitabh Bachchan comes off as one cold-blooded hombre.

This is definitely worth a look, a superior slice of dumb fun.

A surprisingly good offering from Bollywood. A bank robbery is planned by a disgruntled ex-employee who is upset because he was fired. The plan involves recruiting 3 blind people, training them, etc. The goal, of course, is to rob the bank while making all the witnesses believe that the perpetrators were not blind. If they are caught, who would believe that they were the thieves, right ? But, twists, double crosses and love-twists abound. Understandably, filming such an intricate plot elegantly is beyond Bollywood writers/directors. The plot gets somewhat flimsy at places, where the director tries to forcibly insert some bollywood-ese sections. On the whole, a worthwhile film to watch. Amitabh shines. Paresh Rawal's melodrama is painful to watch. One gets the idea that this was an attempted copy of some Hollywood film.

Aankhen means 'eyes', the story of training three blind people to rob a bank in getting revenge proves for on the edge of the seat viewing. Amitabh again gives priceless acting, Akshay and Arjun Rampal are good supporting cast but Paresh Rawal is great adding great humour. Some of the songs in the films are obviously intended for the indian audience, as films fare poorly in record sales if a film has no songs.

The editing seems a littles inaccurate at times and this is clearly a flaw in the film, if bollywood was to bring out more original themes such as this film it would propel it to a new level.

On the whole, vintage amitabh and some scenes in the film especially between Akshay and the former are ones to remember.

Aankhen is an Indian movie, the story tells of how three blind men rob a bank.The movie was absolutely fantastic.It had a lot of twists and turns along the way, and kept viewers on the edge of their seat never knowing what was going to occur next.

Vipal Shah did a great job directing this movie.The story was simple, yet how it was told was nicely done.Each character had an interesting story of how he lost his sight.

Great music, an exciting story, and great acting makes this a must see for people who understand Hindi and foreign movie lovers alike.

10/10