I watched Khakee for the second time today after watching it 17 years earlier in theatre in 2004. The one scene from the film that I could never forget was when Ajay Devgn makes two police constables slap Amitabh Bachchan. The scene had a scathing impression on my mind, then, as an audience and I dreaded watching the scene even after so many years. In fact I just hoped if the scene was edited out and my family (who were watching the film for the first time) did not get to see it. More than just a scene from the film, the scene had the dreaded impact because one never wants their favorite hero Amitabh Bachchan to be slapped by a subordinate for no rhyme or reason. But then it makes one wonder that the makers would have conceptualized the scene to impact the audience's mind for the same effect. And thereby the evilness in Ajay Devgn's character is palpable.
Khakee was a well-written film with interesting characters and a taut-thriller storyline (apparently inspired from LA Confidential). But somewhere it went a little overboard with action, melodrama and runtime. Though it was a norm then, in retrospect a 3 hour long film seems unimaginable today. And also seems unnecessary since precisely cutting the formuliac elements of overdose of action and melodrama could have brought the runtime in control. But then director Rajkumar Santoshi played on to the standard formula of getting the hero and villain in literal dishoom dishoom mode in the climax, putting in an item number in preclimax, making Akshay and Ajay get into more action to exploit their action-hero potential, making Akshay and Aishwarya go into the mandatory dream sequence song and dance mode, having Amitabh confront the corrupt Chief Minister just for rhetoric and such similar tropes. Mind you, I don't intend to say Khakee is a bad film but just highlighting how it could have been a much better one.
In fact it had so many characters that it could have made for an interesting web-series today with the scope of exploring backstories of several characters (like Akshay, Aishwarya, Amitabh) or subplots with others. Though it played to gallery, Khakee was never pretentious like many present-day OTT content!
Khakee was a well-written film with interesting characters and a taut-thriller storyline (apparently inspired from LA Confidential). But somewhere it went a little overboard with action, melodrama and runtime. Though it was a norm then, in retrospect a 3 hour long film seems unimaginable today. And also seems unnecessary since precisely cutting the formuliac elements of overdose of action and melodrama could have brought the runtime in control. But then director Rajkumar Santoshi played on to the standard formula of getting the hero and villain in literal dishoom dishoom mode in the climax, putting in an item number in preclimax, making Akshay and Ajay get into more action to exploit their action-hero potential, making Akshay and Aishwarya go into the mandatory dream sequence song and dance mode, having Amitabh confront the corrupt Chief Minister just for rhetoric and such similar tropes. Mind you, I don't intend to say Khakee is a bad film but just highlighting how it could have been a much better one.
In fact it had so many characters that it could have made for an interesting web-series today with the scope of exploring backstories of several characters (like Akshay, Aishwarya, Amitabh) or subplots with others. Though it played to gallery, Khakee was never pretentious like many present-day OTT content!