Going by the look and promos of the film, it was assumed that Deewangee was yet another version of The Perfect Murder, last attempted this June by Abbas Mastan. And the presence of Akshaye Khanna made it even more confusing. Turns out that the film is a take-off of the Oscar nominated film, Primal Fear, at least the first half of the film.
  
So who steps into Richard Gere's shoes? Or Ed Nortan's for that matter? Raj Goyal (Akshaye Khanna) is a successful criminal lawyer. Dedicated to his profession, he's never known for going wrong, until Ashwin Mehta (Vijayendra Ghatge), a music magnate is brutally murdered. Taran Bharadwaj (Ajay Devgan) is caught, but he pleads innocent. His childhood friend, Sargam (Urmila),

a famous pop-singer approaches Raj to fight his case since she knows that Taran is innocent. Raj meets Taran, and begins believing that he's been framed. With every meeting, Raj discovers that Taran is saddled by a hard childhood, stammers, lapses into occasional amnesia and suffers from a split personality. The other face of Taran is an aggressive, foul-mouthed talker Ranjit. An unstable mind is enough grounds for Raj to prove Taran's innocence. Raj wins the case, only to realise that he was a pawn in Taran alias Ranjit's hands. Ranjit is obsessed with Sargam, and would go to any length kill the third person who comes in between them. This time it is Raj who seems to be a threat to Taran's love life. Raj's mission now is to undo his mistake in failing to recognise a criminal by making sure that Taran pays for his crimes.
        

Deewangee's interest factor ends in the first half itself, the premise of which has been borrowed. The second half falls into a predictable pace. Instead of showing Raj trying to outwit Taran through mindgames, it slants more towards the men's obsession with Sargam. Surely, Raj would not reopen a case because he wants to keep the woman to himself; he would be do it only because it was his duty and on moral grounds. By trying to marry off a Darr with Primal Fear, it loses the psychological thriller grip that it should've had. Anees Bazmee has been very faithful to Primal Fear to the extent that the taking of (many) crucial scenes is a frame-to-frame lift from the original. The music has a momentary value, meaning enjoy it on the screen while it lasts. Ismail Darbar tries to do a 'dholi taro' in every film. The film's plus points are its cinematography by

for good performance with this film, it's the latter's handling of the role that amazes you. Akshaye's reputation as a natural born actor gets cemented. His growth as a consummate, exquisite performer is an eye-opener, so is his choice of roles. It's the film that fails him most of the time.
well. Reema Lagoo and Namrata Shirodkar too have excelled. Shilpa Shetty has made it evident that she is capable of much more than just dance numbers. Sharad Kapoor is OK. This movie has proved that Mahesh Manjrekar is too good at making underworld-action based movies.
 
The movie will appeal to most in Mumbai since they can relate to such movies better.