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[dhruvdeepak]

Just saw this movie yesterday, and was very impressed. It was one of those flicks not overdone, and didn't have that sometimes-overbearing bollywood demeanour about it.


Storyline:

The story was fantastic. A lot of complicated side-bars, but overall the conflict of interests and emotions within each protagonist and between them, too, was expertly depicted. Amitabh and Om Puri made a great combination and their dialogues were detailed and interesting.
The dialogues themselves in the movie were powerful, sensible and very realistic.

The basic story goes how Amitabh the police inspector feels his heart torn out watching the injustice done to Muslims in Gujarat, and not being able to do anything about it. He hates having to struggle through the politics to be able to do his job and serve justice. Attached to his story is Om Puri, also a cop, but one who hates Muslims and becomes Modi's right-hand man in serving 'revenge' to Muslims. Caught in this is the friendship between Amitabh and Om, and the fact that Amitabh's 8 year old son was murdered in an attack on Amitabh's home by Muslims (a child to which Om Puri was god-father).

Fardeen Khan plays the educated Muslim boy who, enraged by the manner his well-meaning and peaceful father was killed, turns to acts of violence against the police and Hindus. His love-kahani with Kareena is misplaced in this scenario, but does not intrude much on the main story. Fardeen begins to see the horrible wrongs of his violent stance, and has a change of heart towards the end. His interactions with Amitabh are critical to the story and shape the change in his character as the movie settles down to its finish.

The bomb blasts and riots in the movie are themselves rather graphic, while not being over-done at the same time. They represent a balanced depiction of the hows and whys of the riots in Gujarat and the horrendous injustice and crimes carried out by the authorities in 2002.

Acting:

Amitabh sir does a highly professional job of depicting the fair, good-samaritan, good-guy police inspector. His character has to deal with some poignant conflicting emotions throughout the movie and he brings them out in true Amit style. I especially enjoyed his drinking sessions with buddy Om Puri, very nicely handled.

Om Puri has a rather confused role in the movie. Police inspector, best pal of Amit, but hates muslims. This aspect of his character plays a vital part in the movie, and the directors/producers pulled no punches in allowing Om ji to express those anti-muslim emotions in the movie. To me, the views seemed like those of a hindu commoner on the streets, not a police inspector, but I guess this reflects the reality, and the role the police had to play in the Gujarat massacres.

Fardeen Khan was pathetic. His irritating face contortions meant to depict fierce emotion were awful to say the least, and he totally hashed up his role of young law student - turned sort-of jehadi - to something I wont reveal. The infamous smooch scene with Kareena was even worse (least of all because she looks like a donkey) and overall the role was poorly cast. Someone with a more subtle method and better able to express emotions in the wordless scenes through the eyes would have certainly been a better bet.

Kareena Kapoor did a surprisingly good job. Did not over-act her role and displayed the quiet calm as I imagine the director would have wanted.

Amrish Puri, I guess plays Narender Modi, and is perfect for the job. A pity he didn't get more screen-time, but he was as ruthless as you'd imagine Modi would be in executing those heinous acts.

Overall, an 8.5/10 movie for trying to show what happened in Gujarat without the biases and misinterpretations you'd expect, along with a powerful and quite emotional storyline.