Cinema: Bollywood’s terrorist tale

2009/11/27

K.N. Vijiyan

KURBAAN (Hindi) directed by Rensil D’Silva. Starring Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Om Puri, Kirron Kher, Dia Mirza and Rupinder Nagra. HINDI movies are keeping up with the times. Here’s a story that’s close to our hearts — global terrorism, with the film depicting how a terrorist’s mind works.

A gullible woman is duped into marrying a terrorist posing as a lecturer in order to enter the United States using his wife’s credentials. The movie goes on to portray how his gang tries to inflict harm on the Americans, whom they blame for all the world’s evils.

Kareena Kapoor plays the woman and Saif Ali Khan is the terrorist. The wife is held victim by the terrorist cell operating in suburban New York.
Along the way viewers get to hear heated debates on the terrorist and American point of view.

This is a Karan Johar production but helmed by debutante Rensil D’Silva, who wrote the screenplay for Rang De Basanti and is also working on Maniratnam’s eagerly-anticipated Raavana.

It definitely looks like Karan (whose other recent production Wake Up Sid was a sleeper hit) had a hand in this 50 crore rupee (RM36 million) film.

Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan in Kurbaan.

The cinematography (by Hemant Chaturvedi) in this movie is absolutely brilliant. The dialogue, especially in the beginning when Saif is courting Kareena, is also very interesting and captures your attention.

But halfway through the movie we lose interest as it drags on to the crux of the story: what the terrorists are planning.

The movie is way too long — and it’s not the fault of the songs. In fact, the tunes, composed by Salim-Suleiman, complement the story.

Much of the attraction in this movie is the fact that Saif and Kareena are a couple in real life. Their “hot” publicity poster showing a bare-backed Kareena has already angered fundamentalists in India who want her covered up in a sari.

Kareena (unlike Katrina Kaif, who is aiming to be the No. 1 heroine in Bollywood with her recent string of hit films) desperately needs a hit movie after delivering two flops in a row: Kambakkht Ishq and Main Aurr Mrs Khanna.

There are plenty of holes in the story, if you look for them. For example, the FBI shouldn’t be having pictures of Saif as a terrorist and Kareena and Vivek should be trying to contact the police immediately about what the terrorists are up to.

The scene where Kareena pulls out a bullet from Saif’s shoulder could also have been more convincing.

Despite all this, the movie manages to break new ground in Bollywood.