Dixit, the "Dhak Dhak" girl known for her effervescent smile, delivers the performance of a lifetime. The transformation is physical. For the first half, she is elegance personified. After tragedy strikes, her eyes become hollow, her movements mechanical. In the climax, when Shivani finally traps Vijay, she doesn’t call the police. She takes revenge into her own hands.
Watch it to see the King of Romance dethrone himself. Watch it to see the consequences of obsession. Watch it because sometimes, the hero wears black and the villain wears a million-dollar smile. Q: Is "Anjaam" a remake? A: No, unlike many films of the era, Anjaam was an original script written by Sutanu Gupta.
What follows is a two-and-a-half-hour descent into hell. Vijay uses his wealth and power to systematically destroy Shivani’s life. He gets her fired, frames her husband (played by Deepak Tijori) for theft, and eventually causes a series of events that lead to the death of Shivani’s young daughter. The film doesn’t shy away from showing the brutal reality of a rich man’s unchecked privilege.
Shahrukh Khan once admitted in interviews that he found the role disturbing. He had to detach completely from his real personality to play Vijay. The result is a performance so raw that audiences threw eggs at the screen during first-run showings. They didn’t see SRK; they saw the villain. A great villain is nothing without a great hero to oppose them. In most films, the hero saves the damsel. In the Shahrukh Khan movie Anjaam , Madhuri Dixit’s Shivani saves herself— viciously.
However, buried deep in the late 1990s filmography of the king lies a forgotten gem, a psychological thriller so dark, so violent, and so morally twisted that it remains one of the most controversial entries in his career:
What follows is a 15-minute bloodbath. Shivani throws acid in his face, impales him on gardening spikes, forces a cyanide pill down his throat, and finally, as he begs for mercy (which she gave him earlier in the film but he rejected), she crushes his head under a mannequin’s foot.
Ask any fan of the Shahrukh Khan movie Anjaam what they remember most, and they will tell you about the laugh. After killing Shivani’s daughter by locking her in a room with a ferocious dog (a gut-wrenching scene), Vijay visits the grieving mother. He offers sympathy. Then, when she leaves the room, he leans back in his chair and lets out a low, slow, maniacal cackle. It is not just acting; it is pure, unadulterated cinematic evil.