I try not to miss any of Govind Nihalani’s movies, but unfortuantely ever since he has joined the mainstream, it seems that he is all at sea about what he is supposed to do here.
The last good movie he made was ’Drohkaal’ which gave us Ashish Vidyarthi (look where he is now, blech)
’Thakshak’ was ok but just.
The film has AB playing Jt Comm of Police Dev Pratap Singh and Nihalani staple Om Puri playing Tejinder Khosla. I can’t shake off the nagging feeling that the character of Khosla is loosely based on KPS Gill.
Farhaan (Fardeen Khan) is a young man deeply affected by the violent killing of his Gandhian father.
Believing that Hindu politicians and Dev are responsible and provoked by a corrupt Muslim politician
Latif (Ehsaan Khan, spouting chaste Urdu), Farhaan embarks on the path of terror and violence
that sparks riots through the city.
Watching him is childhood sweetheart Aaliya (Kareena Kapoor) who gets the better of her curiousity
and finally confronts him and puts him back on the right part.
Then there are riots and more riots, people are slaughtered and the CM and Tej advice Dev that the people must be allowed to express their anger (Narendra Modi anyone).
In one harrowing scene, a hindu leader and his goons burn down an entire chawl of muslims while Tej stands doing nothing and orders Dev to stand fast.
The finale leaves the audience bewildered and I kept asking myself what the heck was that ????
The character development is skecthy and inconsistent.
One of the threads of the screenplay where Dev’s son is shot dead by terrorits is wasted meaninglessly.
’Dev’ is Nihalani is trying to say something on the communal issue but forgets whats it is he
exactly wants to say and then decides to pack up things and go home, leaving the audience to
make sense of it all. A perfectly good chance is frittered away by a good director and surely many of
his admirers will be left with a bitter taste in their mouth.
Of the performances, Om Puri and Rati Agnihotri (Dev’s wife) are wasted.
Fardeen Khan is as good as one of the legs on my coffee table.
Kareena Kapoor is passable.
Amitabh Bachchan towers over the others. His performance is as strong as the film is inconsistent.