A Wednesday
Neeraj Pandey, 2008, India (9.2*)
This is a tightly plotted, finely crafted thriller from India, in fact, perhaps the best modern drama I’ve seen from there. The story is very timely: a police commissioner (Anupam Kher) receives a phone call from a common man, as he calls himself, brilliantly played by Naseeruddin Shah (whom you never suspect of being an actor), who claims to have planted five bombs throughout the city. As a show of good faith, he tells the commissioner the first bomb in the police station across the street. When that bomb is found, the authorities decide the man is serious, and they start meeting his demands, beginning with bringing four deadly terrorists together who are being held seperately. This story becomes a battle of wits, and of two computer experts: the ‘common man’ terrorist and a hacker the police bring in to pinpoint the location of his cell phone calls to the police.
I can’t reveal much without spoiling the surprising story, which should hit home with audiences around the world. Suffice to say that: (a) there are no music videos in this film (b) the running time is actually under two hours (c) a&b make this film unique among Indian films, at least in my experience! This is a much tighter story and better film than the top-grossing Ghajini, the previous review here.
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This is a tightly plotted, finely crafted thriller from India, in fact, perhaps the best modern drama I’ve seen from there. The story is very timely: a police commissioner (Anupam Kher) receives a phone call from a common man, as he calls himself, brilliantly played by Naseeruddin Shah (whom you never suspect of being an actor), who claims to have planted five bombs throughout the city. As a show of good faith, he tells the commissioner the first bomb in the police station across the street. When that bomb is found, the authorities decide the man is serious, and they start meeting his demands, beginning with bringing four deadly terrorists together who are being held seperately. This story becomes a battle of wits, and of two computer experts: the ‘common man’ terrorist and a hacker the police bring in to pinpoint the location of his cell phone calls to the police.
I can’t reveal much without spoiling the surprising story, which should hit home with audiences around the world. Suffice to say that: (a) there are no music videos in this film (b) the running time is actually under two hours (c) a&b make this film unique among Indian films, at least in my experience! This is a much tighter story and better film than the top-grossing Ghajini, the previous review here.
