Footpath is a crime thriller film directed by Vikram Bhatt and stars Aftab Shivdasani, Emraan Hashmi, Bipasha Basu, Late Irrfan Khan, Anup Soni, Aparna Tilak and Rahul Dev.

An undercover policeman reunites with his childhood friends who are now criminals and tries to make change their way.

A futile attempt to remake the flop film 'Angaaray' directed by Mahesh Bhatt which itself is a remake of the Hollywood classic 'State of Grace'.

I went through lots of public reviews and everyone was going gaga about the acting of Emraan Hashmi and no one is talking about how the film is actually made, in my opinion the film was a big disappointment, be it screenplay, execution or the climax it looked like that almost every scene was copied from 'State of Grace' and no recreation is been attempted by director.

Acting is itsy bitsy decent but majorly disappointing, Emraan Hashmi in his debut film proved that he possess the talent and proved to be a dark horse in his career, Aftab Shivdasani looked impressive in few of the scenes but majorly got overshadowed by Emraan and did a forgettable role, Bipasha Basu cried throughout the film and was majorly disappointing, Rahul Dev is a talented actor but tired too hard to look tough (he had to fill the big shoes as his character was played by the legend Ed Harris in the Hollywood original) hence it seems that he wore the same face throughout. Anup Soni was very impressive in his limited screen-time, Late Irrfan Khan was wasted and Aparna Tilak was forgettable.

Screenplay of the film is slow and the length of the film is painfully 2.40 hours. Those who had seen State of Grace will easily anticipate the next scene but those who are watching the film for the first time might also not get too excited with the limited twists in the film.

The music of the film is good and the songs are beautiful and some of the songs are still played, the climax of the film is also average and doesn't impresses much. Overall a wasted attempt to copy/remake/recreate another Hollywood classic.

Mahesh Bhatt's ANGAAREY(1998) was a flop at the B.O, The film a remake of STATE OF GRACE(1990).Surprisingly even Salman Khan's AUZAAR had a similar story which released in 1997 and flopped ANGAAREY was a well made film with some flaws like some forced masala elements and a weird villain Gulshan Grover and the film tilted towards action to fit Akshay's action hero image but yet it stands out as Akshay's one of decent films of 90s when his career was going through bad times. FOOTPATH(2003) follows the same part but yet the film isn't entirely bad, In fact in many ways it's better then ANGAAREY. Vikram Bhatt has done some changes in the film, Emraan's character is a mix of Nagarjun and Irfan Kamal of the original and the bonding is handled much better this time. Even the villainy is not like the original and treated much better. The film starts off well though in old fashioned style but yet scenes are well handled though several questions are unanswered like how Aftab becomes a real estate agent? Childhood love of Aftab-Bips also looks far-fetched, Plus the reason Aftab runs away in childhood is not too clear Yet the scenes between Aftab and Emraan, their coming together, their bonding Emraan's scenes with his sweetheart are well handled, also Bipasha- Aftab story is well handled but too many songs do get on the nerves There are several well handled scenes like Aftab confronting Anup Soni, The transformation in Emraan Hashmi's character, the film manages to evoke emotions, though the end does come across as tad filmy yet the drama is well handled.

Direction by Vikram Bhatt is superb, The Mahesh Bhatt touch is evident throughout the film Music by Nadeem Shravan is tuneful, ZARA DEKH, KITNA PYARA and SAARI RAAT stand out but they do come at quick succession, the best song is Dost Milte hai by Kumar Sanu This film marks the first time Himesh and Emraan came together, as the song SOORAT TERI PYAARI is composed by Himesh Dialogues by Girish Dhamija are fantastic

Aftab Shivdasani tries very hard and does manage to play his character well, though at times he does try really too hard and it shows Yet this is one of his better performances. Bipasha Basu(with a dubbed voice) annoys with her heaving and hamming. The real find is Emraan Hashmi, who debuted this film, the actor was known as a serial kisser post MURDER but in this film he plays a lovable goon and plays it so perfectly for his debut, He even overshadows Aftab Shivdasani. Though his voice was dubbed by someone else(Regular in Bhatt films for a debut) Aparna Tilak is decent Rahul Dev is excellent, while Irfan Khan in a cameo excels as usual Anup Soni is fantastic rest are adequate

This is an interesting film in that it begins as a solid 10 but gradually loses fractions of points as it bows to Bollywood conventions. If director Vikram Bhatt would have forgone some of those clichéd moves, which seem present only to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and tightened up the film a bit both in terms of its story and its pacing/running time, this could have easily been a 10.

Footpath is the tale of four childhood friends in Mumbai--Arjun Singh (Aaftab Shivdasani),Rahul Srivastav (Emran Hashmi),Shekhar Srivastav (Rahul Dev),and Sanjana (Bipasha Basu). Rahul and Shekhar have a tendency to get into trouble. Arjun has a tendency to hang out with them, and Sanjana, despite being friends with all of them, is always trying to coax Arjun to get on a straight and narrow path.

Throwing a monkey wrench into the works, Arjun's father, a union leader, is killed by anti-unionists at the beginning of the film. Arjun witnesses his father's death. Rahul and Shekhar find out who killed him and urge Arjun to seek vengeance. When Arjun cannot carry it out, his friends do so instead. Arjun is sent away, although Rahul sees him off with a heartfelt oath that they will always be friends, no matter what.

Years later, Arjun is living in New Delhi under an assumed name. The police blame him for the retribution death and may still be looking for him after all of this time (although this might just be a "front"). They catch up to him and propose an odd deal--if Arjun will help them penetrate a ring of drug dealers, enabling them to find out who is the high man on the totem pole, they'll let Arjun go free. To make matters more complicated, the drug dealers are the Srivastav brothers, and the policeman in charge reveals that he has just received an encounter order (a kind of governmentally-authorized hit) on the Srivastavs. If Arjun doesn't cooperate, not only will he be arrested and tried for the long-past murder, his friends will assuredly end up dead.

Although roughly taken from State of Grace (1990) and bearing similarities to Footpath co-writer Mahesh Bhatt's Angaaray (1998),that's a great premise and Vikram Bhatt effectively milks it to achieve tonal similarities to The Godfather (1972) and Scarface (1983),but with more of an emphasis on friendship and complex romances. In the beginning, at least, the direction, script, cinematography and performances all come together to create a taut, gritty and compelling story. The cinematography during the opening is some of the best I've seen from Bollywood yet--it's appropriately gloomy, with interesting angles/set-ups and it's well edited. To make the film even more attractive, Bhatt admirably pulls no punches when it comes to violence and later gives us an unusual amount of sexiness, too (at least compared to the Bollywood films I've seen so far).

But slight problems begin to arise when Bhatt makes concessions to tradition. The first song in the film enters when Arjun, Rahul and Shekhar head to a club that might be some kind of Indian equivalent to a "girlie" club. In this context, the song mostly works--it at least feels "organic" to the film. However, it gets blown up slightly into the typical big production number, which takes away some of the atmosphere of a girlie club.

However, there are a number of later songs that are more typical of Bollywood musicals--in the middle of the narrative, characters suddenly break out into song, and they're suddenly traveling around the country to sing in different locales. And even though this is essentially a film about gangsters and friendships, the songs are still in the context of romances, with characters rambling on and on about not being able to sleep at night, pining for the one they desire, being "tortured" by love, and so on. Every song seemed to include the words "dil" ("heart") and "pyaar" ("love") in every line. Not every film needs these types of songs, and especially not every film needs romance songs. The romance subplots, sans the songs, are fine. There are two of them, and they both work well when they're done in a dramatic mode. But the songs simply break the mood of the film, and what was an excellent, tight and gripping gangster flick becomes generic clips on an Indian variety television show. I subtracted a point for this, but would have subtracted more if the film weren't otherwise so excellent.

The other point I subtracted for a combination of two things. The first is what I call "sprawl". Somewhere in the middle, the narrative begins getting a bit loose--not enough to lose one's attention, but enough to amplify how streamlined and focused the beginning of the film was in contrast. It seems like this might be another bow to convention--Bollywood films traditionally run between 2 and 3 hours, tending closer to 3. But not every film needs to be that long. Footpath could have used some trimming. The other problem was that a few scenes towards the end of the film are a bit overacted and overdirected. Bhatt is trying to amplify the emotional impact of these scenes. But they would have played better, and been more impactful, if understated instead.

The above is more nitpicking than specifying serious structural problems. Overall, Footpath is a very good film, but it had the potential to be quite excellent. It would not have needed to be unprecedented to be an excellent film. The technical elements are mostly superb. The performances and direction are mostly superb. The story is beautifully gritty, enthralling and relatively chance-taking. It's important for Bollywood filmmakers to know that for at least some of their audience, bowing to conventions is hurting more than helping. There is great artistry in Bollywood films, and no need to put a veil over it by squeezing the artistry into a template.