Khakee

A police team is given an assignment: transport a terror suspect held in a small town in Maharashtra to Mumbai. They are attacked almost as soon as they set out, and the arithmetic inside the team surfaces at the same time. The tension comes from those two directions at once. Rajkumar Santoshi builds the unit to be mismatched on purpose: a senior officer near retirement whose career has been one humiliation after another, a younger inspector who does not trust him, and a rookie with no experience at all. Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and Tusshar Kapoor take those three, with Ajay Devgn on the other side as a former policeman. It opened on 23 January 2004 to wide acclaim, particularly for its screenplay and its cast. Devgn's character became one of the most discussed villains of the period. The flaws are length and the song breaks. At close to three hours, it stops precisely where it has built tension. Who it is for: fans of police thrillers that unfold on the road. Who it is not for: viewers who want something tight and short.