The Film

The Film is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language thriller film directed by Junaid Memon and produced by Amitabh Bhattacharya. It stars Mahima Chaudhry, Khalid Siddiqui, Ananya Khare, Chahat Khanna, Ravi Gossain, Vaibhav Jhalani and Vivek Madan with Sulabha Deshpande, Mukesh Khanna, Nasser Abdullah and Rakesh Bedi in important supporting roles with a voice-over by Irrfan Khan. The film focuses on seven strugglers who, after failing constantly in their attempts to enter the Bollywood industry, choose the path of crime to achieve this end.

Plot
Seven strugglers Sushmita, Nandini, Ankita, Aditya, Vijay, Raman and Irfan, who are trying to get a foothold in Bollywood, are living as paying guests at Mrs. Braganza's house. Sushmita wants to be a writer, Nandini wants to be a playback singer and idolizes Lata Mangeshkar, Ankita and Aditya wants to be the leading hero and heroine of a super hit film, Vijay wants to be a biggest filmmaker, Raman wants to be a music director and Irfan wants to be a lyricist. All are striving in their respective fields but yields no good results. However, they come across a news that Shamim Bhai, a Don from Dubai targets Bollywood's big names for extortion, tries their hand for quick cash in order to finance their own film, by using name of Shamim and pretending to be his goons, to which all agrees reluctantly despite some of oppose this idea. They target the film financier Sharad Shah and tries extorting inr 100000000 by calling him from a stolen phone, however, when Shah reaches with money to the team, they are traced by Inspector Javed Khan, due to the phone that was stolen by Irfan, had been on tracking by Khan since long time.

They try to escape from the police with the cash and they succeed in this plan. Sushmita and his team hides the bag of cash in outskirts of Mumbai, however their landlord Mrs. Braganza asks them to evacuate the house due to a relative in need of money for their operation as she has to sell her house for money. Police now traces the location of the team which leads to Mrs. Braganza's house. The team lands into much trouble, when one of the real member of Shamim Bhai's gang kidnaps and kills Irfan, who was also identified by Javed, assuming him as Murlidharan's man. Murlidharan is a rival of Shamim and due to this confusion, the gang member falsely assume Irfan as the henchman of the former. The team is devastated by the news of Irfan's death after they watch the news on TV and run from Mrs. Braganza's house as Irfan was identified by police. Nandini is traumatized by Irfan's death and wanted to surrender to police and confess the crime, but got killed by an unknown assailant. The team has now 5 members are on run, whilst the police and Shamim gang are hot on their trail.

They take refuge in Raman's music teacher's (Guruji) house till the matter calms down. The police reaches Mrs. Braganza's house and interrogates her for letting the team to run from her house. She is arrested by Javed Khan and humiliated by him. Unable to bear the treachery of her paying guests and their involvement in crime, Mrs. Braganza commits suicide in police station. This shatters the team and Raman, in a drunken haze accuses Sushmita and other friends for killing Irfan, Nandini and Mrs. Braganza and in the heat of the moment he falls down on shattered pieces of glass and injures himself. Raman dies in hospital after excessive blood loss and now the team has no choice but to run for their lives. However Guruji overhears their conversation about Raman's death and wants to get the team arrested, but gets killed by Vijay and Aditya during the argument. Shamim gang and police traces the remainder to get them killed and retrieve the cash and in the process, Ankita and Vijay are killed. After the skirmish, Aditya realized that Sushmita was the mastermind behind these killings as she wanted to make a film "based on a true story" and mocks Aditya for the same. She kills Aditya and in the final shot, she drags the body of him, thus accomplishing her task for making the script of "The Film".

Cast

 * Mahima Chaudhry as Sushmita Banerjee
 * Khalid Siddiqui as Vijay Khatri
 * Ananya Khare as Nandini Shetty
 * Chahat Khanna as Ankita Kulkarni
 * Ravi Gossain as Raman Raawal
 * Vaibhav Jhalani as Aditya Sharma
 * Vivek Madan as Irfan Lucknowi
 * Mukesh Khanna as Police Commissioner of Mumbai
 * Sulabha Deshpande as Mrs. Braganza
 * Nassar Abdullah as Inspector Javed Khan
 * Rakesh Bedi as Pappi Da (a pun on Bappi Lahiri)
 * Ranvir Shorey as Filmmaker Kaushik
 * Irrfan Khan as voice-over of Shamim Bhai
 * Satyen Kappu as Guruji (Raman's music teacher)
 * Kenneth Desai as Filmmaker Dutta

Critical reception
IndiaGlitz wrote that film has a message of "shortcuts" and "crime never pays" but with a "predictable script". Taran Adarsh rated the film 1.5 out 5, writing, "THE FILM is a decent attempt by a first-time director, who has focused more on the story than the stars." Indrani Roy Mitra from Rediff.com praised the film, describing it as "a laudable effort" from Memon.