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By Taran
Adarsh, May 18, 2007 - 12:30 IST
 Suspense thrillers are tough to make. And film-makers
need to follow three golden rules to make a thriller
work: Cast fine actors… The needle of suspicion should
vacillate from one character to another, keeping the
viewer guessing till the finale… The suspense should
come as a surprise.
RAQEEB, directed by debutante Anurag Singh, holds your
interest at crucial points. Even though the story
bears a striking resemblance to two films -- Venus/Abbas-Mustan's
HUMRAAZ [in turn inspired by A PERFECT MURDER] and
Tips/Ken Ghosh's FIDA -- the film in actuality borrows
from a different film altogether -- MURDER BY NATURAL
CAUSES [1979] -- a lesser known English film. In the
original, one of the leads wears a pacemaker. In
RAQEEB, he's asthmatic.
RAQEEB is not without its share of deficiencies.
Fortunately, the uppers outnumber the downers in this
case. The twists in the storyline and the dangerous
games indulged by the lead characters make up for the
drab moments in the enterprise. In actuality, the film
gathers speed minutes before the intermission and the
graph only goes upwards as the reels unfold. But
here's a direct question to the debutante storyteller:
Why didn't you opt for an unconventional end, for that
would've been the perfect icing on the cake?
Sometimes, evil also wins!
In a nutshell, RAQEEB isn't great cinema. It isn't low
on substance either. It floats somewhere in between.
Watch it without expectations and you wouldn't be
disappointed.
 Remo [Rahul Khanna] is the owner of a highly
successful software company. Remo's parents had died
in a car crash when he was a child. Siddharth [Sharman
Joshi] is his employee and probably, only friend.
Siddharth is the exact opposite of Remo who is shy,
introvert and asthmatic.
Siddharth constantly pesters Remo to socialize so that
he can meet a few girls and fall in love with one of
them. Remo seems to be averse to the idea until, one
day, Siddharth plays a prank and sets Remo up for a
blind date.
Remo meets the girl and after a misunderstanding falls
in love with her. The girl is Sofie [Tanushree Dutta],
a theatre actress. Everything is perfect until Remo
and Sofie discover that her parents died in the same
car crash in which Remo's parents had been killed.
Sofie realizes that Remo's parents were responsible
for the death of her parents.
Remo doesn't know how to deal with this tragic
discovery. Siddharth persuades him to propose to Sofie.
Remo proposes and after the initial hesitation, Sofie
accepts. Remo and Sofie get married.
Sunny [Jimmy Shergill] is a struggling actor who is in
love with Sofie. But Sofie always desired a luxurious
life which Sunny was unable to provide. Hence, Sofie
married Remo. When Sunny and Sofie meet again, the old
love is rekindled. Thus begins a torrid affair between
them.
Tired of having to meet secretly and only
occasionally, they plan to kill Remo. The plan is to
hide Remo's asthma medicine and then aggravate his
asthma so as to trigger an asthma attack. Once the
asthma attack occurs, Sunny has to pretend to shoot
Remo with fake bullets so as to aggravate his
condition further, eventually leading to death. The
post mortem will reveal that Remo died of natural
causes and hence, no one will be suspected of any foul
play.
The D-day arrives and Sunny comes to Remo's house to
execute the plan. But there is another twist in the
tale. Sofie double crosses Sunny as well and he is
arrested and accused of Remo's murder. But there's
more to this story…
 Unlike most thrillers that reveal it all in the
climax, RAQEEB peels off the mask of the scheming wife
much before the intermission card is flashed on the
screen. The reason why this film works is because
everyone's playing games here. That makes it extremely
difficult for the viewer to guess the prime suspect --
the manipulative and scheming mind.
The reason that prompts the prime suspect to indulge
in dangerous games is completely justified. But the
writer-director messes it up with such a tame ending.
Debutante Anurag Singh succeeds in presenting an
unconventional theme with care. The idea of an
ambitious woman in a relationship with three men at
the same time is undoubtedly interesting. In terms of
execution, Anurag handles the drama well, building the
suspense beautifully.
Pritam's music is foot-tapping. 'Channa Ve Channa', 'Dushmana'
and 'Qateel' are nice compositions. Fuwad Khan's
camerawork could've been better. The locales of
Thailand are striking, but the visuals don't make you
scream 'Wow!'. Dialogues are well worded at places.
RAQEEB belongs to Sharman Joshi, who is evolving into
a powerful actor. He slips into the role effortlessly
and looks natural all through. Rahul Khanna is perfect
as the suave tycoon. Why doesn't one see more of you,
Rahul? Jimmy Shergill's role reminds you of the
obsessed lover in DARR, but after he's shown getting
arrested, this track is sidelined completely.
Nonetheless, Jimmy does a worthy job.
 Tanushree Dutta is a revelation. Although her makeup
and outfits [why so much skin show?] continue to be
atrocious, you have to give credit where it's due. She
enacts her part very well, expressing a lot through
her eyes. Vishwajeet Pradhan is hardly there. Rekha
Rao is wasted. Vivek Shauq excels. He provides the
much-needed light moments.
On the whole, RAQEEB is a fairly engrossing fare. At
the box-office, the bold theme may find its share of
advocates and adversaries. Besides, the
not-as-aggressive promotion and minimal hype will tell
on its business.
Rating:- * * 1/2
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