Aakrosh (2010): Component-based Film Development At Its Best!

What is the most important element in a movie? There are several candidates to choose from including the story, the script, the editing and the acting.
For me it is the story. If the story is entertaining enough it will keep people talking about the film.
I think that Bollywood is either running out of this magic ingredient or is becoming very smart and seeking stories from outside the usual settings we find (e.g. gangsters, young love, family sagas etc.). Such stories promote 're-use' and 'adaptation' and lead to creative new cinema. Kind of like mixing ingredients from different cuisines to come up with exotic flavours. One such example is We Are Family.
Another thing to appreciate is that we have started acknowledging the source of the story and declaring openly when stories have been lifted from other movies/sources instead of just copying and claiming credit for originality.
But there are times when this re-use is stretched beyond reason. It is ok to to re-use or adapt stories but certainly not lift it scene for scene even if you repackage story elements to give it an Indian feel.
Aakrosh is guilty of doing just this. They have lifted Mississippi Burning (1988) scene for scene.
They have cleverly re-packaged story elements to use news-worthy issues which makes the final product easier to sell.
So FBI from Mississippi Burning is the Special Investigation Team of the CBI, segregation in southern state of Mississippi in the 1960s is repackaged as honour killings in Haryana, race issue is repackaged as a religious issue, sheriff of a small town is converted to the local inspector in a small town and so on... I could write a new blog post just to map out the massive repackaging effort that is Aakrosh.
But that is not the end of it. They have actually lifted full scenes from Mississippi Burning (MB) including the camera angles, dialogs and situations. I have not even seen Aakrosh (as it has not been released yet) but I can tell you, from the trailor, what each scene means and what is the general flow of conversation.
Two examples:
1) Bips being beaten by her husband and landing in hospital - the whole scene that follows with the fight between Akshay Khanna and Ajay Devgn which ends in Akshay Khanna pulling out a revolver on Ajay Devgn.
2) The whole sequence where a witness is taken in with his identity hidden using a cardboard box.

So all in all Aakrosh is looking like a pasta dish with 'desi-laal mirch ka tadka'. If they have done it well then the movie would be more than watchable. Trust me I have had pasta dish with desi-tadka. It tastes yummy! But if they have just lifted MB then it is a movie best left unseen.

Oh and Mr Priyadarshan... at least acknowledge the fact that you have lifted the whole concept and entire scenes from MB!

;)