One walked into Strangers expecting it to be a total rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. One walked out of Strangers wishing that it had been a copy of the 1951 classic from the master of suspense. But Strangers, some commendable performances aside, is all style and no soul, all smoke but simply no fire.

The first half of the film is, just like its title, a copy-paste job from Hitchcock’s spine-chilling Farley Granger- Robert Walker starrer. Two strangers (Jimmy Sheirgill and Kay Kay Menon) meet on a train and in the course of their conversation, strike a deal to kill each other’s wives — Jimmy’s unfaithful wife Nandana Sen and Kay Kay’s mentally unsound spouse Sonali Kulkarni — leading the audience to believe that an intriguing movie experience is on the cards. But it is in the second half that Strangers loses it all when it tries to move away from the original and come up with Bollywood-style twists and turns — with disastrous results. A narrative that oscillates too frequently between the past and the present leaves the audience totally confused and the lack of any real suspense in the plot sounds the death knell for this Aanand L. Rai directed film. And though it is just about an hour-and-a-half long, the sluggish and lifeless pace, despite the presence of some really smart lines in the first half, brings on some real yawns.

The film would also want us to believe that there are more Indians in London than Brits!

If Strangers is worth a watch, it is only for Jimmy Sheirgill. His transition from an easygoing young author in the first half to an unemployed alcoholic who murders his wife in cold blood is effortless. Kay Kay Menon is saddled with a sketchy role, but true to form, turns in a top-notch performance. But we are left questioning the wisdom of assigning a role of such importance to Nandana Sen, who fails to deliver. Blink and you’ll miss Sonali Kulkarni, whose much-publicised bathtub scene gets about two seconds of screen time.

The producers hinged the entire promotion campaign of Strangers on the fact that Jimmy refused to kiss Nandana in the film. We wish he had. It might have added some much-needed spice to the film.