Irfan Khan, Jimmy Shergil, Uday Chopra, Namrata Shirodkar, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Adam Bedi
Music:
Raju Singh
Lyrics:
Javed Akhtar
'Charas' is an action thriller and is set in a place near Kulu Manali. Unlike what the title suggests, it is not about addiction to the drug but is about drug cultivation.
One sees more foreigners than locals in the village. But the locals are said to be making money by growing 'charas' instead of vegetables and are assisted by the foreigners. It is well-organized and is controlled by the Italian Mafia.
An English boy, Sam Higgins (Adam Bedi), a student of Botany, disappears from Himachal one day. His parents being well connected in the political circles manage to send an Indian cop from the Scotland Yard, Dev (Jimmy Shergil), to India for investigation.
An Indian cop (Uday Chopra), who pretends to be a vagabond, is assigned the duty of keeping a watch on Dev. Both become friends without revealing their true identities to each other and go up to the mountains in search of answers.
A mysterious blonde-haired drug don, who is an e-cop, Policeman (Irfan Khan) calls the shots.
En route they run into an assortment of characters; a hitch-hiking school-teacher (Hrishita Bhatt), and a junkie (Namrata Shirodkar) who is hooked on to ice creams. Later we discover that the ice cream slurping junkie is a journalist, but does nothing to expose the shady dealings in the valley. Hrishitaa claims to be a school teacher but turns out to be an accomplice of drug dealers. The latter's character hasn't been well-developed. Even the romantic track (Jimmy-Namrata, Uday-Hrishitaa) is not developed.