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The defence minister (Amol Palekar)
promises to hand a floppy containing facts of a conspiracy to kill off
the prime minister (Mohan Agashe) over to his chief of security Manu
Verma (Amitabh Bachchan), but when doing so is killed by Manu - who soon
turns out to be not Manu after all but assassin Raghavan (Manoj Bajpai)
wearing a facial mask, & he even leaves his calling card (the
joker's mask on a keychain) at the scene of the crime. When a short time
later the same keychain is found at another crimescene, Pradhvan, Manu's
friend from homicide, contacts Manu & together they take up
investigations, that soon lead to the arrest of Raghavan's brother
Narang (Vineeth Kumar) & girlfriend, nightclubdancer Nita (Raveena
Tandon), but also to Raghavan abducting Pradhvan from almost under
Manu's nose & shooting him. After questioning Narang & Neeta
though, Manu & his new partner, collegeboy Arjun (Singh
Abhimanyu Shekhar) manage to capture Raghavan - even though
it costs them half a squad of cops, who Raghavan kills using
guerilla-tactics. Raghavan is tried, convicted & - as he is
unwilling to give up the names of the heads of the conspiracy -
sentenced to death by hanging. When lead to the gallows though, he makes
an escape attempt but is shot dead by Manu. This is not the end
though, as soon Manu is possessed by the spirit of Raghavan, first
killing Narang in his prison cell for betraying his whereabouts, then
starting (or continuing, depending from the point of view) with Neeta -
even though Manu is married with child - & taking revenge on the
judge who convicted Raghavan. Only Arjun grows suspicious of Manu after
a time, & his wife Surpiya (Nandita Das) finds out the truth when,
after a romantic wedding anniversary he all of a sudden gets violent
towards her. Not willing to give up her husband though, she takes him -
in one of the periods when he is himself - to a guru (Salim
Ghouse), who tells him to go to the origins of his possessions
(the nightclub where Neeta is dancing), & that he only can get rid
of Raghavan during a total eclipse of the sun. At the nightclub
though, he is confronted, at the same time by his wife, Neeta, &
Arjun, who wants to make an arrest, which ends in Neeta getting shot,
Arjun thrown out of a window, & Suryia getting kidnapped by a
possessed Manu. At the seaside, everything culminates in a final
showdown as Manu wants to sacrifice his daughter Gita (Gargi
Vegi Raju), but is stopped at the last moment by his wife
talking reason into him & the occurence of a total eclipse of the
sun. Raghavan however is reluctant to let go of Manu yet, if it wasn't
for Arjun, who enters the scene with Raghavan's disabled brother
Mahadevan (K.K.Raina), the only person Raghavan ever really cared for,
& threatens to kill him (having since figured out the possession
business himself). In the chaos that ensues, Raghavan leaves Manu's body
to possess his brother's, but is now promptly shot by Manu. The floppy
is found, the prime minister saved, the real culprit apprehended &
Arjun drops his case against Manu. The world is rid of Raghavan forever
... but is it ? An interesting but conventional
espionage-psychothriller story that gets a new spin when it, after about
half the story, turns into a possession-horror-film, which totally
reshuffles the cards without destroying the set-up it has built, thus
very ably keeping up the excitement until the end. & Amitabh
obviously relishes in playing both the good & the (camp) bad guy,
which keeps the whole movie very entertaining. |