This movie gave a boost to the sagging career of Raveena Tandon, which sagged anyway with her following releases. This one has a twist in the tale, and Rajiv Rai's reputation of a maker of glossy suspense flicks took root with this and was cemented with his next release, Gupt. The pre-release hype of this movie was generated by the number, Tu cheez badi hai... (Was Viju trying to prove to Anu Malik that he could just as well a job with pilfering, or did he take a cue from him to save his own career?). But the biggest talking point during its making and on the eve of its release was the coming together of Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty. The brawn that they would add to the movie was sure to draw the action buffs to the hall, although the histrionical capabilities of both were suspect, especially the latter.
Akshay stars as a cop, Amar Saxena, who is out to get the two underworls dons, Tyson and Gibran. But before that we have Vishal Agnihotri (Sunil Shetty) incarcerated for killing four men. Roma Singh (Raveena Tandon) is the daughter of the superintendent of that jail and she turns up to do a covers story on it for a newspaper. Yeah! You guessed it right! She's a journalist and this appears to be the only story she ever does (it sure takes that much longer if you have to sing and dance with the principal characters as well as cover them). She finds out that Mr. Wrong has himself been wronged. She resolves to get him justice and approaches the owner of the newspaper, Mr.Jindal (Naseeruddin Shah) to get him another trial. He does jut that and voila, Vishal is free.
Some residue of rancour still persists in Vishal and when Jindal asks him to help cleanse the society by eliminating the gangs of Tyson and Gibran, he jumps on the offer. Here in lies the twist but you are not going to get it here. Did I hear you ask about Akshay? Well, our man has been busting the hideouts of the two dons, incognito and has been on the trail of, now, Mr.Right. His most annoying sidekick (Paresh Rawal) and Roma keep him company. As for the song and dance sequences, the latter takes the chunk.
By the time we come to the end, we would have witnessed quite a few murders, some steamy yet melodious songs and our very own Qutub shahi Tombs. I am sure that those of you who watched the movie will recall the climax, which has been shot there, including another version of Mast, Mast. Sunil and Akshay do what they do best - beating the hell out of the bad guys. Raveena manages to get noticed during the songs tip, tip barsa pani and....you know which. Naseeruddin Shah cakewalks through the role (with a voice like that, he always would).
The best thing about the movie is that gives that little bit more while still sticking to the basics of an action movie. That extra bit is the changing equations among the principal characters. Agreed, it is nothing new but, if well done, it works. The collections of the movie bear testimony to the fact.