''Aks'' () is a 2001 Indian

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

action thriller film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, starring

Amitabh Bachchan Amitabh Bachchan (; 11 October 1942) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. He is often considered one of the greatest, most accomplished and commercially successful actors in the history of Indian cinema.* * * * * With a cinemati ...

Raveena Tandon Raveena Tandon (born 26 October 1972) is an Indian actress primarily known for her work in Hindi films. Considered as one of the leading actresses of the 1990s and early 2000s, Tandon is a recipient of several awards, including a National Film ...

, and

Manoj Bajpayee Manoj Bajpayee (born 23 April 1969), also transliterated as Manoj Bajpai, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of numerous accolades including four National Film Awards, four Filmfare Awards, and two ...

in leading roles. The music was composed by

Anu Malik Anwar Sardar "Anu" Malik (born 2 November 1960) is an Indian music composer, singer, music arranger and score composer. He is the recipient of a National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards, who primarily composes music for the Hindi film ...

. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics and being a box office flop, it won three awards at the 47th Filmfare Awards: Best Actor — Critics (Bachchan), Special Award Performance (Tandon), and Best Sound Design (Ranjan). Bachchan and Bajpayee were nominated for the Best Actor and Best Villain at the same ceremony as well.

Plot synopsis

Aks is a supernatural thriller centering on two characters― a cop named Manu Verma (

) and a shadowy killer named Raghavan (

). During a conference in Budapest, the defence minister is found murdered. Manu Verma investigates the case and discovers that the culprit is Raghavan Ghatge, a sociopathic serial killer who works as a hitman. Raghavan is caught. As he is about to be executed by hanging, his spirit goes into Manu's body and starts to manipulate the cop into performing acts that Raghavan wanted to perform. But he couldn't save himself. He goes to another town but is not able to find peace. Eventually, Raghavan's spirit leaves Manu's body. Everything seems to be normal. Manu and his family go on vacation. Unfortunately, Raghavan's spirit is still alive and possesses Manu's friend.

Cast

as Inspector Manu Verma *

as Neeta *

as Raghavan Ghatge *

Nandita Das Nandita Das (born 7 November 1969) is an Indian actress and director. She has acted in over 40 feature films in ten different languages. Das appeared in the films ''Fire'' (1996), ''Earth'' (1998), '' Bawandar'' (2000), '' Kannathil Muthamittal' ...

as Supriya Verma * K.K. Raina as Mahadevan Ghatge * Tanvi Azmi as Madhu Pradhan * Vineet Kumar as Narang * Pramod Moutho as Justice Balwant Chaudhry *

Salim Ghouse Salim Ghouse (10 January 1952 – 28 April 2022) was an Indian film, television and theatre actor, theatre director, and martial artist. He has acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English films. Early life Salim Ghouse was born in Ch ...

as Blind Guru * Veerendra Saxena as Hanif Kasai * Vijay Raaz as Yeda Yakub *

Vrajesh Hirjee Vrajesh Hirjee (born 16 June 1971) is an Indian film and television actor and comedian. He is also a script writer, dubbing artist and doing commentary in vivo pro kabbadi league season 9. He has acted Hindi language films like ''Rehna Hai Tere ...

as RAW Officer 1 Ramesh * Gajraj Rao as RAW Officer 2 Chakradhari * Mithilesh Chaturvedi as PM's Aide Pathak *

Amol Palekar Amol Palekar (born 24 November 1944) is an Indian actor, director and producer of Hindi and Marathi cinema. Early life and education Palekar was born to Kamlakara and Suhasini Palekar in a Marathi language, Marathi speaking middle-class family ...

as Minister Alok Chaudhary

Production

''Aks'' is the directorial debut of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Amitabh Bachchan sported a French beard to portray his character.

Music

A. R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967), also known by the initialism ARR, is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinem ...

was initially approached to compose original score and songs for the film. Rahman initially agreed and then opted out for reasons unknown. Rahman would later compose for Mehra's '' Rang De Basanti'' and '' Delhi 6''. After Rahman walked out of the project, the original score was composed by Rahman's associate Ranjit Barot while the songs were composed by

with lyrics penned by

Gulzar Gulzar (born Sampooran Singh Kalra; 18 August 1934) is an Indian Urdu poetry, Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this era. He starte ...

. Sukanya Verma of

Rediff Rediff.com, stylized as rediff.com, is an Indian news, information, entertainment, and shopping website. Founded by Ajit Balakrishnan in 1996, it was the first Indian website to become a mainstream news media organization. It is headquartered i ...

appreciated the album saying that Aks is a "captivating album with funky, experimental, new age music".

Reception

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'' praised the cinematography and music of the film along with the acting performances of all actors, specially Amitabh Bachchan. Taran Adarsh of

Bollywood Hungama Bollywood Hungama (lit. "Bollywood Madness" in Hindi), previously known as IndiaFM (or IndiaFM.com), is an Indian entertainment website, owned by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, which acquired the website in 2000. The website provides n ...

praised the visuals and music of the film but criticized the film for being too complicated and slow. Taran gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2000s Hindi-language films 2001 films 2001 action thriller films 2000s supernatural horror films Films scored by Anu Malik Films directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Indian action thriller films Indian supernatural horror films 2001 directorial debut films