Reviewed by Cassam Looch
Stars Anil Kapoor, Anurag Sinha, Shefali Chhaya, Aditi Sharma,
Habib Tanvir, Akash Khurana, Sai Tamhankar
Written by Sachin Bhowmik, Subhash Ghai & Akash Khurana
Music direction by Sukhwinder Singh
Certification UK 12A
Runtime 133 minutes
Directed by Subhash Ghai
With the plethora of Hollywood films tackling modern day terrorism, you’d think that a Bollywood take on the subject would be a bad idea. Hardly renowned for its subtlety, there could hardly have been a worse genre to place this film in… But thankfully this breaks with (preconceived) traditions and even though its not the success it could have been it’s still a breath of fresh air when compared to most of the stateside drivel we’ve seen.
Hardened terrorist Numair Qazi is sent on a mission to attack the Red Fort in India from his base in Afghanistan. Claiming the identity of a young Muslim who’s parents were murdered in the religious riots of Gujurat, his own background is unclear but his determination is not. Dispatching any problems with an icy demeanour his plans are thrown into disarray when his contact is caught, and so he looks for another route into the highly fortified target. Enter a local Professor who takes pity on Numair and tries to bring him into the family home, much to the dismay of his activist wife. Soon though Numair gains the trust of the family, and even catches the eye of a local girl, but nothing will distract him from his main objective… no matter who gets in the way.
Giving the central protagonist almost no background the film instead quickly sends him off to kill from the now familiar terrain of the mountains of Afghanistan. This means we never fully understand what drives him, and as such he becomes no more than a vague shadow throughout the film. That said this is kind of the point and newcomer Anurag Sinha does a great job as a mysterious newcomer. Veterans Anil Kapoor and Shaefali Chhaya wonderfully play the relationship between the Professor and his wife. Their bickering yet affectionate marriage seems particularly real, even if he is just too good to be true. Trying to be all things to all people, he seems blind to the obvious flaws in Numair’s character and his constant reaching out is even more inexplicable than the terrorists motives.
The film still moves at a fair old pace, and keeps faithful to its characters right up until the climatic ending, when unfortunately all reason goes out of the window. The sudden change in personalities is tantamount to Hannibal Lector becoming a vegetarian and working in a charity shop at the end of Silence of the Lambs. It’s a shame, because the film promised much early on.