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Aan - Men At Work
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'Aan - Men At Work'

By ApunKaChoice Bureau
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Madhur Bhandarkar's semi-realistic cop thriller Aan - Men At Work is an ode to the police force. It highlights everything in cops' world - their frustration at the inadequacy of the system, their powerlessness in the face of those in influential positions, their subsequent complacency in doing their job and their ultimate crusade against the lawbreakers. Aan has it all. Yet the movie fails to move you because of poorly written script, and deliberate inclusion of some female characters.

Duty carries different meanings for three cops -- Sr. Inspector Vikram Singh [Shatrughan Sinha], Appa Kadam Naik [Sunil Shetty] and Constable Khalid Ansari [Paresh Rawal]. While Singh has given up to the dictates of the system governed by higher forces, Appa is an encounter specialist with the view that every bad guy needs to be eliminated. In between, Khalid is the man who finds some humor in anything.

Having

fought the rigid system in their own ways these officers have accepted a laidback attitude as a way of life. The three have succumbed to a system rife with corruption, bribes, and the ubiquitous underworld nexus.

On the other hand are the bad guys -- Underworld don Yusuf Pathan [Irfaan Khan] who enjoys full support form corrupt Home Minister Manik Rao [Manoj Joshi] and panders to the influential business magnate, Gautam Walia [Jackie Shroff]. These three people virtually rule the city.

But thing change radically when D.C.P. Hari Om Patnaik [Akshay Kumar] gets transferred to Mumbai's crime branch. A young officer who carries inside a fire to fight the evil ones, Hari does his best to shake his three colleagues out of their complacency. He makes them aware of the honor of their duty.

Things heat up with the murder of Walia's rival industrialist-businessman Ajit Pradhan [Milind Gunaji] who is bumped off by Yusuf Pathan's younger brother Yeda [Rahul Dev].

It is then the police force decides to take on these bad elements. But when Pathan's henchmen shoot at Appa Kadam's wife Janki (Preeti Jhangiani) and child, the police force, including the commissioner (Om Puri) declares a war on them.

A hardcore cop thriller, Aan is movie that tries to blend the elements of commercial cinema with art. Besides the adrenalin savvy action sequences, the film is embellished with some exceptional dramatic confrontations that would appeal to the masses - for example, the standoff between the Police Commissioner and the Home Minister.

Bhandarkar gives a lot of footage to the introduction of each character in the first half. Especially the intro Akshay and Sunil has been filmed most imaginatively. The film begins to gather pace with the killing of Milind Gunaji and the subsequent song on Reema Sen. What is novel about this movie is that Bhandarkar has juxtaposed songs with split-screen action-plus snapshots, thereby ensuring flow of story even in songs.

Post-interval portions include some interesting sequences that lift the movie to a new high -- the sequence between the three cops [Shatru, Akshay, Suniel] and Irfaan Khan outside the mosque or the scene in which Akshay shoots Rahul Dev and throws him off the skyscraper.

However, there's no denying that the film could've done with better writing. The story particularly gets a tedious with the many subplots involving all the women who have been included in the story just for the heck of it.

Lara Dutta, who plays Akshay's love interest Kiran, has not more than four scenes and one song. Preeti Jhangiani has three. Raveena Tandon plays Jackie's woman Roshni, a character that does not make any sense in the movie.

The performances by the movie's male cast are worth appreciation. Particularly outstanding is Paresh Rawal and Irfaan Khan. Akshay and Sunil do their action bit with utmost conviction and Om Puri leaves a mark with his marginal performance.

On the whole, Aan will appeal to masses but not to family crowd. The movie is high on action but low on emotion.

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