Review: Raqeeb belongs to Sharman

Director Raj Kanwar has delivered many masala films (Humko Deewana Kar Gaye, Har Dil Ho Pyaar Karega,Andaaz) some of which found acceptance amongst the masses. This time, Kanwar takes on the producing mantle, letting his assistant, debutant director Anurag Singh take over the directing reigns, and he doesn't disappoint.

Raqeeb -- Rivals in love is a suspense thriller that does its job and holds your interest until the penultimate scenes. Raqeeb is not a novel story and borrows heavily from the 1979 telefilm, Murder by Natural Causes. Plus, we've seen many films about double and triple-crossing back home too, like Ketan Mehta's Aar Ya Paar or Abbas-Mastan's Baazigar. But despite a common storyline, Raqeeb works largely due to a gripping screenplay peppered with exciting twists and turns that takes the audience by the hand, and leads them in unpredictable directions.

Remo, (Rahul Khanna) an asthmatic, owns Zen Software that specializes in security for bank networks. Remo seems to have it all, business sense, lots of money and the good life -- but feels numb within. His parents were killed in a car crash when he was a child. Siddharth (Sharman Joshi) is Remo's fun-loving friend and trusted employee. Siddharth sets Remo up with his 'chat-mate', Sophie (Tanushree Dutta) and it seems like the perfect love story. However, before the lovers can traipse into Phuket's setting sun, we discover that Sophie's parents were killed in the same car crash as Siddharth's parents.

Still, the lovers manage to overcome this trauma and walk down the aisle. But, every character is hiding behind a mask in this movie and we soon figure out that Sophie has rekindled her affair with her ex-love, an obsessed angry lover, Sunny (Jimmy Shergil). Sophie emotionally blackmails Sunny to kill Remo (by Natural Causes) and hatches a plan to provoke his anxiety and asthma so he dies on his own, leaving Sunny a free man. As luck would have it, Sunny discovers that Sophie has double-crossed him. He ends up actually murdering Remo and getting a life sentence.

But that isn't the film's plot, and it's only after this that the film gets most interesting, revealing plot twists layer by layer that come as startling surprises.

Raqeeb is a tale of obsession and revenge on many levels. It is told partly in flashback, so that you have to piece the events together and figure out how far back the action of the film began, what is now and what was then. Debutante director Anurag Singh's haunting theme weaves its way through this labyrinth of lies, leading to a satisfying (but unadventurous) conclusion.

Rahul Khanna as the business tycoon does his bit but looks uncomfortable doing the song and dance routine. He should carve a niche for himself with intelligent non-massy cinema like his namesake Rahul Bose. Jimmy Shergil looks incredibly angry all the time -- the problem lies in faulty writing of his character that doesn't paint any realistic shades of grey.

Tanushree Dutta recently said that she won't expose anymore in films. Strange, because she seems to have nothing else to offer. Vivek Shauq provides the occasional guffaw. Cinematography (Fuwad Khan) is average as is Pritam's music.

However, the film truly belongs to Sharman Joshi who has grown from strength to strength since Rang De Basanti. The talented actor makes strides with his performance and doesn't look like the hero's sidekick.

Rediff Rating: