There was no hype surrounding this film but it’s doing well even two weeks after its release. It has a first time director (Raj Kumar Gupta), a first time leading man (Rajeev Khandelwal, TV Star) as well as a first time cinematographer (Alphonse Roy) and a first time music director (Amit Trivedi). All brilliant.
The movie tells a story of the hunted and the hunters. The director has handled the subject (terrorism) with great sensitivity and objectivity. The film, which tells of the happenings of just one day, is entirely from the point of view of the central character in the film - young Dr. Aamir Ali (played by Rajeev Khandelwal). This creates the suspense. We have no idea why strange things are happening to Aamir, why he is being targeted…after all he is just an ordinary middleclass person, although a bright one. He has come up in life by getting scholarships and working hard…and the story begins when he returns to India after a stint in London. He wants to come back because he has a family…three sisters, a younger brother and mother waiting at home in Mumbai.
Aamir is a Muslim and right at the start we are shown how Muslims face discrimination at the airport checking counters. It annoys the young, fresh-faced Aamir but well, this isn’t what the movie is about. It is not petty officials who will worry Aamir….but people from his own community.
The director wastes no time in getting on with the story. As soon as Aamir steps out of the airport the drama starts and the pace doesn’t falter for a minute! It is a roller coaster ride for the viewer…right from the time when hapless Aamir watches a motor-cycle zoom towards him and throw a cell-phone into his hands!
The story takes place in the poor areas of Mumbai, Muslim dominated. Everything is shown just the way it is…we see it all unfold in dark alleys and filthy lanes, in overflowing gutters and smelly godowns, in stifling rooms and over-flowing toilets, in the eyes of Aamir and in the eyes of innocent children. If you haven’t seen this movie, don’t miss it. Unless you don’t like thrillers or dark movies. And the music is good, but no singing. Just theme songs.
