Producer: Rohit Kumar
Director: Deepak Tijori
Cast: Arjun Rampal, Sagarika Ghatge, Sunny Deol, Udita Goswami, Vipul Gupta
Music: Monty Sharma
Lyrics: Sandeep Nath

Deepak Tijori's intentions of making a thriller may be all fine, but none of that eagerness seems to reflect in the manner in which he has tackled the film. It is clumsy and the final resolution is forced to say the least. Tijori takes the lazy and easy recourse to clichés without a proper buildup in the final resolution and that mars any bit of good work that he had displayed in the first half. 'Fox' has an interesting storyline. Or at least a part of it is very interesting and has the potential to pan out into a very absorbing whodunit. But lack of skill, imagination and thus a poor screenplay, ruin the total effect.

Briefly, the story is about a top-notch defence lawyer, played by a very wooden Arjun Rampal, who gets disillusioned by his profession and decides to give it all up and move to Goa to sort things out in his mind. In Goa, he encounters an old man who gives him a manuscript to read. It is a very thrilling murder story, called 'Fox'. But the old man dies and the lawyer is left holding the manuscript. Since it was the old man's wish to get it published, our defence lawyer takes it to a publishing house run by a young woman, played by Udita Goswami. The book gets published, but in the lawyer's name. It goes on to become a bestseller and one day reaches the desk of the crime branch head in Goa, played by none other than Sunny Deol. The cops arrest the lawyer for murder since every murder detailed in the book is about an actual murder. The author has even used the original names of the victims, leaving the cops with no other option but to arrest the lawyer for murder. The lawyer has five days in hand to prove that he has been trapped by someone and is actually innocent. He is helped by his girlfriend and ladylove, played by Sagarika Ghatge in his investigations.

On the face of it, 'Fox' has a fairly decent story. But in the hands of Tijori, most of the suspense and mystery element goes out of the window. Even if the first half is slightly interesting and raises one's hopes slightly, once it comes to the climax, the film falls apart.

As for the actors, the lesser said about them the better. Let's begin with Arjun Rampal. Since the film has been shot over a period of time, one can see the transformation and change in the manner in which Arjun looks over the course of the film. He is stiff and wooden and it is obvious that his heart is not in the movie. One knows that he is capable of better stuff. His reason for taking a sabbatical from law and his angst, seem so unreal and artificial. If one went by our Hindi filmmakers, then all defence lawyers would need to be jailed and hanged. They seem to forget that a uniform legal system is a pillar of all democracies.

Sagarika Ghatge, who plays the protagonist's girlfriend in the movie, is insipid and has the most insipid lines to mouth as well. It is obvious that she has a long way to go where acting is concerned. But to give her credit, she tries hard. In the hands of a more skilled director, she would definitely be able to perform better. Udita Goswami is fine as an actress but one never realises what her character is all about and her reason for being there in the film.

The most tragic case is that of Sunny Deol, who seems to have been totally sidelined in this movie. He comes in the second half of the movie and hardly seems to have anything to do, except for growl occasionally. He has been saddled with a badly written role and there is little that he can do about it.

In fact, one cannot really blame the actors, as they are at the mercy of a bad director and a bad script. Fox is a sloppy attempt at making a thriller. The film's production values are not worth a mention. The screenplay goes haywire. Its music, composed by Monty Sharma, is quite forgettable. In all, a very poor show, actually.