It seems that Raveena Tandon is the chosen one when it comes to bastardising Hitchcock’s past classics. She managed a Kim Novak in Vertigo in Officer earlier this year and if that was dreadful, you have to see what Bhatnagar has done to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.

Raj Matthew (Sanjay Kapoor) is married to gorgeous but very jealous and bored Madhu (Aditi Gowariker) who mistakenly believes he is having an affair with his director Priti (Raveena) though the latter has some serious but latent feelings on her part. Enter Om (Arbaaz) a stranger, who arranges to meet Madhu in a disco only to shoot her. The police pick up Raj as the chief suspect until Priti comes forward with a compromising alibi unconcerned that it increases the suspicion against him.

But hey, what’s the connection? It is good old Om (Arbaaz) who reveals himself to be a psychotic escapee from a mental asylum. he has murdered Raj’s wife so that Raj can murder his abusive father. Om and Raj had met one fateful night when Raj had complained about his wife and Om about his father and Raj had made a quip about how nice it would be if he did not have his wife to worry about and Om his father. That was enough of an indication to Om that he should murder the nasty Madhu and that Raj would then oblige as far as his father was concerned. Make any sense? Why not murder the man yourself? After all it appears he has had no qualms in killing his brother and mother.

Thus starts the long and dull cat and mouse game between Raj and Om. In fact it is no cat and mouse at all, just an over prolonged piece of Bollywood hokum which produces no thrills and teeters to a most predictable climax. There is no suspense. Good triumphs over evil, hero and heroine unite and hit song plays in end credits. Yawn yawn.

Sanjay Kapoor is his normal ferret-like self for most of the film except for one song in which his demonic haircut from Koi mere di se pooche makes an appearance and a physique resembling stuck on padded breasts. Raveena is simply awful. Arbaaz plays his looney role once again-he was better in Daraar. Clearly his career is going nowhere in a hurry. Aditi Gowariker makes a bitchy and reasonable debut.

Disastrously directed, this really makes no impression at all with too many dull songs to further dilute the impact. A waste of time. As for the title, if you were in any doubt, there are enough references to Soch to keep you going throughout- is it a crime to have spoken the thought- it is when there is a maniac afoot. But do we really care?