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This is comic book stuff yaar!
`Nuclear Attack', yelled the posters and promotion on television of the film 16 December, so as you take your seat in the theatre, you get a sinking feeling that this may be the real beginning of the End of the Imagination (Arundhati Roy's post-Pokhran tirade). But by the end of this slick flick you heave a sigh of relief as the yell of nuclear attack turns out to be a hoax.
Welcome to the weird world of outlandish gizmos, gun toting secret agents and a deranged ex-General of Pakistani army for the villain, which makes it look like an episode out of kiddie serial Indradhanush of good old Doordarshan days (still remembered because today's golden boy of Bollywood, Karan Johar, had acted in it).
The film begins with an investigation by the Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) into the siphoning of unimaginable amount of money on a daily basis into a secret Swiss bank account that leads us to a larger premise of nexus between criminals, Dalal Street honchos (a cross between Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh), politicians and deadly terrorist organisations.
Beware! The above-mentioned things do not look as intelligent as they sound. You have to wait well past the interval to get a clear vision of what is going on on the 70mm screen in front of you. The characters playing out this drama are stereotyped and cardboardish, as a well-versed, witty friend aptly put it during the interval: `This is comic book stuff yaar.'
Debutant director Mani Shankar had pompously claimed in a recent interview that he did not want to make a film which insults the intelligence of the audience, but he has watered down this heavy-duty subject (story, screenplay, dialogues and editing are also credited to him) so much that the effect on the audience is exactly the opposite of what he had intended to do.
The director has attempted to give an authentic and topical look to the film by incorporating some terms like Jihad and ISI, but we feel that they are not sufficient. As for the much touted nearly thirty minutes of special effects, `no comments' would be the apt comment.
The cast of actors make a sincere effort to look convincing, and on some occasions they do succeed to rise above the script and impress us. Especially Danny Denzongpa in the lead as the chief of DRI is very likeable and it is heartening to see his name roll out first in the credits. Model-turned-actor Milind Soman, debutant Dipannita Sharma and Sushant Singh, who played the Veerappan inspired character in Ram Gopal Varma's Jungle form the rest of the team of Danny.
One's heart goes out to Gulshan Grover, the eternal Bad Man of Bollywood because he is made to do everything that he has done throughout his career, use countless disguises and mouth cliched dialogues, the only thing he is spared of doing is pulling sarees and tearing blouses. For portraying an ex-officer of Pakistani army out to avenge his insult of surrendering to the Indian army in the Bangladeshi war on 16th December 1971, by blasting a nuclear bomb in the heart of New Delhi on the same day thirty years later, we expected an articulate and sobered up Gulshan Grover. All seen and suffered, one can only pray that we are not reminded of this fateful film on 16 December for the rest of our lives.
PARESH C PALICHA
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