This film is somewhat a copy of "Silence of the Lamb" which was an excellent movie. But I would consider 'Sangharsh' to be an average movie. There reason it did not go to become a successful, because of few reasons. The Direction is not as good as it should be, the scripting is not as it should be, the backdrop and the subject is good, but there was no reason to copy it, they could have made a whole new script for the movie. Only good thing about this film is the two songs which became a massive hit and brought people into theater and the new guy "Ashutosh Rana", the villain of the movie whose spine chilling performance, made this movie worth to watch.

Often looked down upon as a Hindi remake of The Silence of the Lambs, Sangharsh will always be remembered for Ashutosh Rana's menacing portrayal of Lajja Shankar Pandey--a religious fanatic who slaughters children with the hope of gaining immortality. Such was the raw intensity in his portrayal of a disgusting child killer that it pretty much sealed the fate of his acting career as a villain. Yes, extremes often don't go well with the Indian audiences. In Dushman, his previous outing, he had played a rapist and a killer but here he seems to have gone a bit too far. Besides, strong negative roles are not easy to come by in Hindi cinema. So, we never get to see the same Ashutosh Rana again on the celluloid! The loss, of course, was entirely ours.

In Sangharsh, Akshay Kumar too delivers the finest performance of his acting career. Playing the complex part of the quick-witted Professor Aman Varma, Akshay seems to be exploring a completely different side of his acting repertoire. For once, he lets his eyes do most of the talking. The scenes he shares with Preity Zinta are quite solid. It is a pity that some of them are directly borrowed from The Silence of the Lambs. Nonetheless, the acting efforts are commendable. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was Preity Zinta who had started the trend of playing strong female characters in Hindi cinema; and it all started with Sangharsh wherein she plays a gritty CBI Officer.

Overall, Sangharsh is a very difficult film to watch. It's uncommon for Hindi films to have such high graphic content. Rana's ferality, Akshay's intensity and Preity's vulnerability make it a memorable film. The climactic sequence featuring the trio is both scary and adrenaline-pumping. The songs, although they are very good, somewhat compromise the movie's suspense element. Also, the romance between Akshay and Preity looks a bit out of place. But there is no denying that it's presented in a refreshing manner. Sangharsh is not meant for the faint-hearted. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

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It could have been far better if it doesn't follow typical bollywood old fashioned excitement on the girl the hero loves. If there is no love between the two protagonists, it could be near great. It deserve 4, but additional 3 comes for Asutosh Rana, the brilliance.