DEADLINE - SIRF 24 GHANTE is a taut thriller directed by Tanveer Khan. This is the director’s second film after his moderately successful debut with the John Abraham-Bipasha Basu starrer Madhoshi. The film is based on the Hollywood film Trapped (which had the alternate working title 24 Hours) released in 2002. While the original film had eminent actors like Kevin Bacon, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Courtney Love and Dakota Fanning in the lead roles, DEADLINE boasts of the acting talents of Irrfan Khan, Konkona SenSharma, Rajit Kapoor, Sandhya Mridul and Princey Shukla in the respective leads.
The director focuses on the thriller genre and successfully rebuilds the tension of the original film. The seasoned actors give their very best to make their characters credible. The screenplay also cleverly dismisses some of the fluff that were there in the Hollywood flick and incorporates an indigenous hue, making this film more watchable than other plagiarised versions of Hollywood products.
The story is about a kidnapping of the only daughter of a celebrated heart-surgeon and the emotional blackmailing and the tormenting tension that surmounts in a space of barely 24 hours. Well, that’s just the tip of the tale and I would rather suggest the viewers themselves relish the plot-content unfold on screen. It is needless to say that the cast is extremely talented and they deliver according to the demands of their roles. Apart from the talented players who have already been named, I enjoyed the splendid act by Zakir Hussain who has been consistently thrilling us with his portrayals of late (case in point: Sarkar, and other Ramu Varma films). The humane message at the end of the film resonates loud and clear, thanks to the satisfactory tying of knots by the director and the understated performances of the key players. The cinematography of Baba Azmi, and the art-direction by Bijon Dasgupta need to be appreciated. And, thankfully, there are no song-and-dance routines to interrupt the proceedings in this satisfactory thriller.
Post-script: The web-address that provides a fair enough coverage of the film is - https://indiaglitz.com However, on the flipside, the reviewer (F. Shahryar) has goofed up on the original content, the Hollywood thriller Trapped has inadvertently been given an oversight!