If a film has to be judged only on the basis of noble intentions behind its making and its main aim of generating some awareness among the viewers (about their own money) then KNOCK OUT works in one way. But if the movie has to be judged as per its style of making, taking into account the various sources of its inspiration then KNOCK OUT is a complete waste of time, money, effort and creativity put in by one and all in the project.In other words, to describe it as a movie, let's keep Joel Shumacher's PHONEBOOTH and our own Neeraj Pandey's A Wednesday together in a mixer and then mix it to have a new crispier and designer product to sell out in the market. That's what Mani Shanker's KNOCK OUT is in a nutshell. Taking its major inspiration of execution from PHONEBOOTH and then incorporating the national awareness theme adapted by a common man from A Wednesday, Mani Shanker comes up with his own project which unfortunately stands no-where close to any of its originals (if you have seen them both). In fact for the viewers who are well familiar with both of the above mentioned classics, KNOCK OUT remains a completely inspired and unwanted project which very childishly tries to take away the credit of the works done by the other filmmakers previously.So for me, the moment I witnessed its clear unaccepted and unacknowledged link with PHONEBOOTH, the movie lost all its meaning and importance of being an Irfan Khan, Sanjay Dutt or Mani Shankar film. It was extremely shocking to see both Irfan & Sanjay doing the roles which are nothing but the copy of the work of others. This once again raises the same question that Are these well known actors so uninformed or unaware of the roles they are assigned to do by their directors? OR Are they only interested in the monetary rewards they are getting in return? With the body of work associated with both Imran Khan & Sanjay Dutt, there is no way that they may have not seen the hugely famous English film PHONEBOOTH and the Hit Hindi movie A Wednesday. Still they readily agreed to do exactly similar roles as seen in these two films is indeed questionable.As far as the movie is concerned, Mani Shanker continues to show his fascination with Electronic Gadgets, Computers and Passwords as earlier used in his 16 December. His intention of making the people of India aware of the amount of money deposited by the Indian Politicians in Swiss Banks is appreciable. But his choice of executing the same by the means of copying is not acceptable. The film is simply PHONEBOOTH made in Hindi before intermission which starts moving towards becoming A Wednesday in its second half. Performances too in the movie have nothing much to write about as they have all just performed like a routine job including the versatile Irfan Khan.And with a court verdict coming in the news today about the original makers of PHONEBOOTH wining the case against KNOCK OUT, there is nothing more to say about this latest example of Bollywood copying from the West.Ratings : No Rating as its simply a rip-off.

(1/2)Sanjay Dutt being a wonderful actor could have done much better.But it appeared like he is still in the hangover of Billa Of Musafir.Irrfan was a treat.Good to see Gulshan after a long time.(1/2)Story of Knock Out is a take on corruption.But lot of potholes.The identity of Sanjay Dutt is hilarious.The money transaction scenes are equally dumb.(0/2)Direction is forgettable."A Wednesday" with similar plot was wonderfully executed.(0/2)Music is unmentionable.One can only remember Irrfan's dance number outside booth.It was the only time when people do enjoyed the movie.(1/2)About the X-FACTOR.Watching 2 veterans (Sanjay and Irrfan) is a delight though the direction ruined the movie.

I went to see this movie frankly because i was totally free and my friend insisted me to, I beforehand knew that this was a straight lift from the holly movie Phonebooth starring collin Ferrell and i wasn't to keen to watch this anyway 10 minutes into the movie i got proved right that it was a straight lift indeed but i was pleasantly surprised !! 'cause the movie was really gripping and i forgot about all the copying stuff and got engrossed completely , For those who have not seen phone booth they will like this even more, irrfan who is a black marketeer gets into a public telephone booth to do some usual business and gets captivated into the booth by sanjay dutt who calls him on the public phone and tells him that he has a sniper pointed on irrfan from a nearby building and then asks him to do stuff which exposes a corrupt politician ultimately , i wont reveal who sanjay is and why he holds irrfan captive 'cause thats for the viewer to find out and the reason is very compelling, valid and relevant to our country's biggest problem i.e black money , In Phonebooth the captivator was a psycho but its not the case here sanjay's character is of a very sane and intelligent tech savy person ,The movie also features a fight sequence involving sanjay which looks a straight lift from 'the bourne ultimatum' but none the less its pretty well done as well, the movie also has some laughs provided by irrfan but it doesn't loose its focus on the main theme ,what i didn't like though about the movie was that the makers blatantly denied on TV interviews that the movie wasn't a copy of phone booth but those were just blatant denial's. Barring that i liked the movie a lot , hats off to sanjay dutt, irrfan khan and mani shankar for making a focused , entertaining , no - nonsense movie 8/10

there are hundreds of movies that were copied and now as quoted inspired from Hollywood movies in Bollywood. Even the Indian audiences recognize right after watching trailer of such movies. But the trend doesn't end. It gets better. Knock Out is an example of that. Movie starts with a corruption money being transferred to a Swiss Account. Then leads to character name Bachchu played by Irafan Khan who gets to a phone booth and makes a call. Right after he hung up the phone, he receives a call. There the story begins. A story about a shooter (Sanjay Dutt) who has Bachchu on gun point and ask him to do things that Bachchu would have never imagined. the story remains excited till the ending. I wouldn't say it was the best movie I have ever seen. but was worth watching once and enjoy. Sanjay Dutt and Irrfan Khan's chemistry works. They both done well as you expect from experienced actors. Kangana Ranaut is natural. Gulshan Grover gets few good lines other than that doesn't get much scope. Is short watch it once, it wont spoil your time.