Moksha Review

The fundamental nature of Moksha is clearly visible during the titles itself. The names under the guest appearance header make the invitees list of Jayalalita's foster son's marriage look like an acronym. A desi psycho-romantic-socio-responsible-courtroom-thriller-lookalike is what you see if you've made it wide awake out of this.

An unfathomable, 'ab-coach' bodied Vikram Sehgal (Arjun Rampal), who was the first one to get brains before they were perfected, is our disgruntled protagonist. He's a lawyer that wants to run the cast of 'The Practice' out of business by establishing a body of lawyers that would fight for the not guilty and the not so very rich, for free. And not surprisingly, everybody thinks he's losing it. Ritika (Manisha Koirala) is the only mortal soul loopy enough to put up with this outrageous chap.

A great deal of sweat would have gone into the scenes depicting our hero showing his emotional capabilities, and you wish you'd enrolled yourself in aerobic scream therapy. Meanwhile, the project taken up by Vikram isn't going anywhere since he cannot get financial assistance. But then he reads a book named Easy Money by Robin Banks, and decides to commit a crime in order to save millions of innocents.

Ritika is adamant in letting the love of her life go ahead with the dare because she dreams of him eating lead even as she acknowledges being an X file. Hence, betrayed and cross, he ventures solo into the offence only to find out that some lady had already intimated the police about it.

Then you see him in a court of law defending himself against the charges of murdering Ritika. Thanks to this wondrous storyline, you get to script your home production: That Thing That Grew In My Refrigerator.

The next few reels keep reeling forward as an interesting courtroom drama unfolds. Interesting as in Dogmatic: A Mechanical Hound. Finally he's acquitted although all the evidences point towards him: he escapes by proving that Neelima (Kalpana), Ritika's roommate, isn't straight. When he comes to know that Neelima was the one that had intimated the police, too much of guilt drives him suicidal. At this point you would find 'moksha' very melodramatically appropriate.

Arjun Rampal could give Antonio Banderas a healthy competition in looks as well as his acting skills that are almost on par with Banderas' British accent. His hairstyles easily tell you that history was known as current events during the shooting of this film. Manisha is 32 years old. Just count the rings under her eyes.

The music isn't as cramped up as the script. And Ashok Mehta was a great cinematographer, so spare him a minute as a director. He can tell you everything he knows. Bollywood directors by no means cease to prove that the only thing they took up in school was space.

If you don't like Arjun Rampal, stay at home and study for your blood test.