Films on terrorism are nothing new to Bollywood, especially when they tackle issues on skirmishes and conflicts between India and Pakistan, but lately, this exploratory net has been cast a little bit wider, and the net being thrown at stories taking place on US soil, and this year alone we have Kabir Khan's New York, and Renzil D'Silva's Kurbaan. (Next up is My Name is Khan by same production house set in US.)
Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) teaches at the university and falls in love with colleague Ehsaan Khan (Saif Ali Khan). The two get married and shifts to New York City. Life starts normally for Avantika and Ehsaan.But not for soon. There Avantika becomes witness to some terrorist operations in her neighborhood headed by a Muslim fundamentalist (Om Puri). Soon she realizes that she is a pawn to a huge conspiracy. She secretly seeks help from a television reporter Riyaaz (Vivek Oberoi) who attempts to infiltrate the terrorist outfit to foil their big plan.
This is as simple as it sounds but there are some gaping hole in the story which i cudnt help but mention here..
The most critical plot points in the film make little sense—the FBI have Ehsaan’s photograph and history on their records. An FBI agent barks—"I want this man found and found fast"—and yet, Ehsaan roams around freely.
He has a driver’s license and a job teaching a course on, get this, the Muslim identity in the Modern World.
When Avantika realises that her neighbours are dubious, she doesn’t call the cops like any normal person would. Instead, she goes alone, at night, into their basement and stumbles on a dead body.
Riyaaz goes one step further. When he figures out that there is a sleeper cell, he doesn’t call the FBI. Instead he declares: "I’m going to deal with it myself" and joins the gang.
The terrorists aren’t very bright either. After one dinner, they enlist Riyaaz into the group. People dating each other probably spend more time looking up for partners on Google than these guys do before bringing in Riyaaz on a plan to blow up subway stations.
And then, there’s the Kareena-Saif lovemaking scene that has generated reams of newsprint. Yes, it is bold by Bollywood standards. You see her bare back. It’s aesthetically done but again, the logic for it is laughably silly – she has to get the names of the stations that will be blown up. So she seduces him and then digs into his desk to get the map with the stations marked out. She says, "Kya hum ek raat ke liye sab kuch bhool kar phele jaise nahin ho sakte", but he doesn’t wonder why she’s being so friendly all of a sudden.
Lesser mortals in the movie Kirron Kher is an Afgani in the movie, her dialect an as Afgani trails away while she having the conversation
In a regular Hindi film, viewers are happy to suspend disbelief. But a film that deals with such serious, intricate issues cannot demand that comfort.
Performance wise Saif Ali Khan has done a better role in the Sriram Raghavan's movie Ek Hasina Thi and of course Omkara, there he was convinced us on the playing negative characters with complete ease. He slips here. Kareena looks Stunning all over the movie. For some particular reason, Vivek Oberoi had a good acting and lived in his character, with this movie, he surely be getting some push in his career.
watch if you want to.
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