The movie has a decently innovative plot - a common man (aam aadmi) played by Nasseruddin Shah, negotiates the release of four top terrorists, not to help them to escape but to kill them himself. If the plot is new, the theme - of citizen(s) frustrated by the incompetence of their (Indian) government and taking matters in their own hand - has had quite a steady recurrence. Most recently this was also the theme of the runaway hit Raang de Basanti. Why is it so ? .To anybody who has lived in India the answer is so obvious (of course the government is bad) that even asking this question would invite incredulous expressions. The exasperation (of the people) portrayed here is against the government's inability to stop the bomb blasts that continue to kill and maim people across India. These blasts, with terror as their motive, quite intentionally target the nerve centres of the country. Delhi, the political capital was shaken with five bombs on September 13, leaving 22 people dead. Bangalore, the IT city was hit on July 25. Bombay, the financial center was hit most viciously, with 130 people killed, in July 2006. To put things in their grim perspective, more than 400 people have been killed in bomb blasts throughout India since October 2005 [1].
What has been done to soothe the nerves in this situation ?. The government has nabbed a few suspects, issued condemnations and vowed to put to a stop to this. Columnists write paeans to the sagacity of the Indian people [2] and applaud their wisdom for not getting tempted into another riot. Then comes another blast and we get a repeat performance from these actors.
This is the mood the movie taps into and then limits itself to projecting anger and the accompanying desire for retribution.
Meanwhile Nasseruddin Shah is hard at work, he has secured explosives and a quiet place to work (which happens to be the secluded rooftop of a under construction building). He is shown talking to his wife about getting vegetables, to emphasize his ordinariness, after all what can be more mundane than a man's wife reminding/asking him to get one or the other comestibles. This vegetable request, is one of Bollywood's chief ways of introducing viewers to the presence of a wife. Once done, Shah energetically climbs up to this roof office where he has a desk, laptop, cellphone and a stash of SIM cards ready. Before getting here he is shown to have deliberately left a bag in a police station opposite the Mumbai police headquarters. This as we will learn later was his means to establish the credibility of his threat.
As the plot unfurls we see Shah calling the police commissioner, and demanding four top terrorists to be gathered up. Threatening to blow up bombs that he has placed all across the city if his demands are not met. Immediately after receiving the phone call Kher is shown walking into a quite tacky 'war' room. Here we see several people working in front of computer screens. Apparently this will be the command center for dealing with this bomb threat.
War room or not, attempts to track down the man behind the threat go nowhere. The conventional trail followed by extracting information from local criminals (by beating them black and blue of course) who would have likely arranged for the RDX , leads to a different under construction building. On this trail is a very angry Jimmy Shergill, playing a Muslim cop (there has to be a Muslim patriot in a fight for the country movie isn't it ?. I wonder if the Muslim community welcome these unsolicited explanations on their behalf or find it insulting ?).
The technology trail also leads nowhere, the cops are unable to trace the location of the phone number. They must bring in a hacker. This hacker is perhaps the most cliched character of the film. He proudly acclaims he is a college dropout (a la Bill Gates ?) by choice, totes gadgets and while introducing himself to Kher, receives a phone call from a girlfriend (who he refers to as babes) and on hanging up ,with the American goodbye style of love ya, sighs women.
Finally the cops are left with no choice, the four terorists are escorted by two cops (Shergill and Aamir Bashir) to the loaction asked (an airfield). Shah demands all four to be left seated on a bench and instructs the cops to leave. Jimmy Shergill has the idea of taking one of the terrorists with them to guarantee that the location of the bombs is revealed. While Bashir and Shergill argue over this, the three on the bench are blown up by a cellphone triggered bomb. When all the characters involved in the drama , Shah, Kher and the two cops - Shergill and Bashir, grasp what has happened, Shah demands the fourth terrorist to be killed on the spot. When Kher demands answers, we see Shah going into a monologue.
This speech is really the essence of the movie, in less capable hands it could have easily floundered and become a drag. But Nasseruddin Shah does pull it off, at least sort of. Where the speech is high on josh it is low on the quality of its content. While it expresses the fears and tribulations of ordinary man in the face of such attacks, one cannot be anything but sympathetic. Then comes the shaky ground, where essentially what is argued for is an eye (or more) for an eye. Now more questions emerge then get answered, aren't we already playing this game ? what do you suppose police encounters are about ? where has that gotten us ? should we now resort to mob/vigilante justice ? aren't the several riots a form of a mob justice, do we want that ?. The movie does not want to deal with this, it is content in its anger and only understands that. Solutions of the hot headed variety carry the most appeal, perhaps the movie's aim was no more than attracting the maximum eyeballs ?. Oh well ....[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7614994.stm
[2] http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/tentacles-of-dread-and-terror-gameplan.html
