A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Aankhen features Hasmukh Rai (Kader Khan), who sons Munnu (Chunkey Pandey) and Bunnu (Govinda) are spoilt, irresponsible youngsters whose only aim in life is to have fun at all costs. In the meanwhile Natwar Shah (Gulshan Grover) is a share broker who is behind bars for masterminding a massive stock market scam. Natwar's brother (the late Mahavir Shah) hires a gangster called Tejeshwar Singh (Shakti Kapoor) to help remove Natwar from jail and smuggle him abroad.Munnu and Bunnu inadvertently find themselves entangled in the crosshairs of a diabolical conspiracy to replace the existing state chief minister (Raj Babbar) with his lookalike, who happens to be a member of Tejeshwar's gang. Their misadventure ends with Bunnu gone missing and all evidence pointing towards Munnu, even as the plan to replace the chief minister comes off.Can the brother get to the bottom of it? Will they manage to thwart Tejeshwar and co? Will Natwar manage to escape the long arm of the law, or will justice catch up with him?Unlike what the synopsis above might suggest, Aankhen is a comedy movie that never takes itself seriously. The performances are brilliant across the board, not least those of Govinda and veteran actor Sasadhiv Amrapurkar. There's also the small matter of 3 different characters having a doppelgänger- highly unusual even in a David Dhawan movie.The highest grosser of 1993, Aankhen is a brainless caper which keeps you entertained from the first scene to the last. Leave your brains behind and watch this movie- its a hilarious little caper.

First of all I can't hold it; Govinda is a turn off ! That guy, while being acceptably comic some times, wants to do all; comedy, action, romance, melodrama, and singing. Well dear, you're not Amitabh Bachchan ! I don't know for whom he makes his unbelievable movies? Why doesn't he stick to comedies? God, would I live long enough to watch a good, sane, entertaining movie for him ?! Sure Aankhen isn't that movie at all. However I kept laughing in front of it nearly all the time. Of course not for being funny, but for being idiot ! Originally it's a comedy, but it's full of blood; at extremely awful moment a kid is being shot in a rare scene for a movie of that sort ! It's not a melodrama, but at one of the strangest writing moves in history, the movie creates a lost-and-found theme with 2 look-alikes for the lead's father and the lead, and – try not to laugh – they are the father's twin brother and his son?? So, either the twin brothers married a twin sisters to born identical sons (unlikely!), or one of the brothers slept with the other's wife to gave birth to a twin kids he stole one of them (likely!), or maybe the crack, that the writer was on, was so BAAAAAAAAAD (as likely as not!). Another thing; this movie actually has an Indian god in it, the monkey, yet not as a wise adviser but as an action figure. See how many precedents this movie has ?!Then, Did you see the monkey? It seemed like a cat with a terrible mask for a monkey?, how it appears suddenly with the same outfit of the heroes? (In fact how any god could support this couple of slackers ?!!), Did you see how Govinda turned out to be alive? Or how the thieves of his match do nothing but to shave him (Did you heard about thieves that shave their victim before ?!), Did you see how Shakti Kapoor has a hate for wearing a shirt ?, Did you see the unknown man who the fake Chief Minister shots in the hospital, the one standing behind Chunky Pandey?! WHO WAS THAT MAN? AND HOW HE, NEITHER PANDEY, COULDN'T SEE KAPOOR HIDDING UNDER THE CHAIR IN FRONT OF THEM ???!, and please, Did you see how Govinda killed the evil man brutally at the end (by throwing him to a plane's fan), while he could have been easily handed over to the police?!, most probably they would have executed him later by exposing him to a copy of this movie. On second thought, throw him to a plane's fan more mercifully !Well, I can go forever with this "Did you see.." routine, since the idiot moments are endless, and forced is what this movie is all about. Still the most overblown one is the matter of the provincial look-alikes ?!! I still ask, what was the need to that storyline ?? This is one of the biggest mysteries I have ever met ? But wait a second, is it "I have ever met" or " I have ever met in an Indian movie?" Because there is an important difference, since at the second the sky is the limit (even if it wasn't a fantasy !).Despite that the editing could form a sane personality for a chain of absolutely crazy events, it's still so nervous movie. So with the overdone action, countless coincidences, Govinda, another totally incomprehensible and useless Govinda, a Rambo monkey (that wasn't meant for laughing), shouting everybody, and blood (not mine thankfully).. then it's a wild ride of Bollywood hallucination ! Near its end I felt hysteria. And when I read that it was 1993's biggest Bollywood hit I felt both mad and sad. You have to really pity the Indian moviegoers for loving such a movie that much. Mindless entertainment wasn't that mindless and unentertaining like that before. So how come a camp masterpiece, like Aankhen, IS a masterpiece for them at the moment ?!P.S : Again, why all the bad Indian movies that I have watched has to belong to the decade of the 1990s ?!

This movie has a lot of firsts. Although David Dhawan and Govinda had worked together before this was the first comedy the 2 made together which would be followed by all those hits. This was the first (and it happened only once more) that the competitors of those days Govinda and Chunky came together in a movie. Of course Govinda ate Chunky alive in his dual role. Finally this is one of the first times that a remake is actually better than the original which is a classic itself. AANKHEN is a remake of S. Raamanathan's DO PHOOL with Mahmood in Govinda's role and Vinod Mehra in Chunky's role. The heroine of the movie was Anjana Mumtaz, nowadays better known as the screenmother of Akshay Kumar. Kadar Khan in a dual role is also good as usual but (except for Govinda of course) the best in the movie is Sadashiv Amrapurkar in his FIRST comedy role. Raj Babbar is oke and Ritu Shivpuri (daughter of Om Shivpuri) is watchable. From the heroines Shilpa Shirodkar is the best. With the hitsongs LAL DUPATTE WALI AND ANGANA MEIN BABA

This is the best David Dhawan film. There are various reason but the best of course is the speed of the film. It just starts and ends. No breaks, no jerks, nothing. A total roller-coaster. A bank robbery, to Desh-Bhakti, to cheap pelvic motions, to high class editing, to great acting, to interesting twists and turns filled with loud laughters. It has everything. For those who came in late 'Ankhein' is still in the top 10 biggest grocers Indian film Indutry ever made.Although every one has performed really well including Chunky Pandey but this is a David Dhawan film. I saw 'Shola or Shabnam' and liked it but 'Ankhein' established David Dhawan as a director with peculiar sense of humor for me. Which again became evident in another fantastic film 'Coolie no 1'. Scene where villager Govinda meets urban Kader Khan is a class of its own. The way Kader Khan says "Handiya Main Kya Pak Raha Tha Gadhey?". Its damn funny.Repeat value of the film is not very high because its very long but I watched many scenes fast forwarding here and there for a long time. my favorite scene is 'Kaun Dega Qurbani' and college principal scene. Govinda is unbeatable and undoubtedly better than Bachchan in some ways. 9/10.