After shifting to USA, this was the first movie which I saw and it was almost after 2 or more months.
At IMC6, The Alameda, San Jose, we got an easy ticket of the movie..and got a reflection of truth about the taste of NRIs here, which I felt is really shallow and third rately restricted to Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar movies like KANK. I mean to say that there were just 8 people to watch Kabul express inside the hall!
Yes and most of these thick skinned NRIs feel shy in speaking Hindi and prefer to interact in English! They are so ashamed of their lineages that they feel even below petty mexicans, vietnameese and chineese guys..who freely talk in their own language and throng their cinemas with heart. Anyway coming to the movie point...Kabul express is a movie made fully from heart. This movie is a gem, where the director has told the story with punch, excellent dialogues and guts.
The Hindi cinema is facing a renaissance period for past couple of years. And Kabul express adds to it. It’s also a different and landmark movie for Indian cinema in the sense of the plot it has taken, the international politics and it’s repercurtions.
Plot: Afghanistan which used to be a part of a India, and even after getting parted away has been in full love for India, has got many things to tell the earns, who belive the honest sayings, the truth, the truth about it’s destruction and the way a beautiful lady is converted into prostitute by oppurtunist neighbours(Pakistan), the dealer( USA) and big brother (India). India with whom Afghanistan has shared lots of love and shares still behaved just like Bhisma Pitamah when Draupadi(Afghanistan’s) cheer haran was being done by Dussashan( Taliban and pakistan) on the order of Duryodhan(USA).
This movie has tried to capture this intricate story with human psychology, which is indeed a tough task and needs commited perormance on every font of movie making..and they have succeeded fully. In fact they have shooted the mvie entirely in Afghanistan!
The movie deals with two Indian war journos covering the Afghanistan for taliban interview, who get hostaged in turn by a taliban, who was trying to escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan, in order to save his life after the USA force and people of Afghanistan started screwing them. The movie beautifully captures the huaman heart hidden inside the cruelest of human, his fate snadwiched in international politics under which his own country denies him entry back and truth of Taliban and it’s love story with USA which was once it’s fund raiser during cold war.
Plot is supported by super direction: Kabir Khan is a new name but he will stand tall in my eyes now for his first movie. He shows that he took enough pain to deliver a clasy product, from bottom to top...from plot to screenplay to camera to performance..and then shooting in kabul itself! Bigger thing is that this man has shown gutts telling the world truth, with whatever money he got inside his pocket. I got very high degree of respectibility for this man. This is what our hindi cinema needs..true and honest directors like Mani Rathnam, Kabir Khan, Kukanoor. I pray that Kabir Khan comes next again with the same level of honesty and dedication and don’t get trapped into the performance pressure to which farhan Akhtar succumbed with Don, after making well movies like DCH and Lakshya.
Excellent cinematography and Techies: I am doing a sin while not able to mention the names of all those techies guys behind the reels of Kabul Express. I cld not remember them..but believe me they all are first rate and need mentioning. Every frame of Kabul express is cinematographic excellence. There is no song but the background score is apt and is what we call precise and perfect. Editing is crisp. Screenplay may look a bit slow to some people but it is really not, if you understand the depth. In fact every frame has tried to tell some story symbolically including capturing dialpidated houses in background or a shadow welcoming the two Indian journos....they all are very suggestive.
Performance is another 5 star stuff: The movie traverses it’s path with 5 major characters. 2 Indian journos, 1 American lady journalist, 1 Afghani driver and 1 taliban. This is the immense capacity of the director that he keeps you stuck to your chairs throughout with just these few characters and powerpakced story telling instead of throwing money over grand sets like Johars and Bhansali. this tells in itself that he has got metal. Arshad Warsi scores above all with superb and spontenous performance as a smoker cameraman understanding the importance of his cigarettes in Aghansitan, second is the man who playes the role of Afghani driver who genuinely shows the level of hatred an afghani cld have for a talibani and same time love for Indians, 3rd comes the Talibani character who has got very supportive script though that you can sympathesize with him a lot. the american actress is a difference from rest, but her facial expessions were clearly like an ameture, though not bad..ya but much better than any other gori angrezan so far in indian cinemas. John Abraham was OK.
Now I close my review with one final thing about this movie: it’s the best movie of this year to send for Oscars, in USA. A true honest and gutsy movie which every man with head will appreciate. this movie deserves mutliple awards and I am very satisfied that I could catch this movie among those few 7/8 NRIs in USA. Hatts off Kabir Khan.