Ajnabee (2001 film)


Ajnabee is a 2001 Indian Hindi-language mystery crime thriller film directed by Abbas-Mustan and produced by Vijay Galani. It stars Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Bipasha Basu in the lead, with Johnny Lever, Dalip Tahil, Narendra Bedi and Sharat Saxena in supporting roles. The film is an adaptation of the 1992 American thriller Consenting Adults, directed by Alan J. Pakula. It was the second film of Akshay Kumar and Abbas-Mustan after Khiladi and the second film of Bobby Deol and Abbas-Mustan after Soldier.

Plot

Raj and Priya meet by chance and fall in love after a whirlwind romance. They marry and reside in Switzerland, where they meet another Indian couple: Vikram and Sonia. The couples quickly become friends and decide to go on a Christmas vacation together to Mauritius.
During their vacation, Raj sees Vikram with another woman, kissing and looking intimate. At the same time, Sonia begins to try to seduce Raj, who rejects her. Vikram notices Raj looking at Sonia and casually talks to him about wife swapping, this upsets Raj and an argument breaks out between the two men. However, a couple of days later, they resolve their issues and become friends again. On Vikram's birthday, the two men celebrate by getting drunk together, sharing bottles of alcohol. Once again, Vikram asks whether he could become Raj for one night, which Raj rebuffs, but still, both men end up in opposite houses.
The next day Raj wakes up to find a seminaked woman in bed and realizes he is in Vicky's house. After talking to Priya about the events from last night, he imagines Vicky was able to seduce and convince Priya to go ahead with his wife swapping and making passionate love throughout the night. After some time, Sonia is found Plastic Face, and Raj is accused of her murder since his fingerprints are found on the murder weapon - an alcohol bottle. Determined to prove his innocence, Raj manages to escape from the court and is chased by the Swiss police. He meets Priya, who eventually believes his innocence and aids him in finding out what really happened. He decides to search Vikram's house, only to be interrupted by Vikram, who calls the police and then reveals that everything was planned in advance. Raj escapes in Vikram's car with Priya.
Raj finds a boarding pass that belongs to Sonia Bajaj, which states that Sonia arrived in Zurich on 29 December — however, Sonia was supposedly murdered on that night. Raj suspects her to be the woman he saw with Vikram, traveling to Geneva together. In Geneva, Raj meets an insurance officer who is trying to find evidence that Vikram was involved in the death of his wife, in order to receive her life insurance payment of $100 million. Working with the insurance agent, Raj traces Vikram to a cruise ship. There, he sees Vikram dancing with a woman who is revealed to be 'Sonia', alive and well Raj confronts Vikram, who finally explains the whole devious plan - the woman whom he kissed in Mauritius was his actual wife Sonia Bajaj, while the woman with him that Priya and Raj were introduced to in Switzerland is his girlfriend Neeta. Vikram, a struggling musician, married the wealthy and glamorous Sonia and convinced her to take out an insurance plan of $100 million on herself. He then formulated a plan with Neeta to have Sonia Plastic Surgery so that they could collect the money.
Vikram boasts about having pinned the murder on Raj. However, Raj takes Vikram to a computer and shows him his empty bank account. Raj says that he had guessed the password, "Everything is planned", something that Vikram used to say a lot, and used it to transfer the money back to the insurance company. Raj also reveals that everything Vikram said had been recorded. A fight erupts between the two and Neeta dies in the conflict. Angered at losing Neeta, Vikram gets aggressive, killing the insurance officer and seemingly kills Raj. He chases Priya to kill her too, but Raj is able to save her. Vikram dies when he is impaled by an anchor from the cruise ship. Raj and Priya return to India in the end.

Cast

Champa devi
The soundtrack for Ajnabee is composed by Anu Malik and the lyrics are penned by Sameer. It is released by Tips Music.
In 2011, ten years after the release of Ajnabee, Malik claimed that the song "Character Dheela" from the film Ready is an unauthorised copy of the song "Mohabbat Naam Hai" while informing the media that he will likely file a suit against composer, Pritam for plagiarism. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 22,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's sixth highest-selling.

Production

Originally, actress Mahek Chahal was cast in the role of Neeta which eventually was given to Bipasha Basu. The climax of the film was shot in Muscat, Dubai and Bahrain on the Indian-owned cruise liner Ocean Majesty.

Reception

Ajnabee received mostly mixed reviews from critics. The performance of Akshay Kumar was praised and he won the Filmfare Award for Best Villain. Bipasha Basu won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.

Box office

The film's Total Nett Gross was 17.04 crore and was declared a "Average " grosser by the Box Office India.