Being the first Pakistani movie to release in India, Khuda Kay Liye would be high on expectations from potential viewers. Lets see it this way, does Khuda Kay Liye make you think or does it make you call the Khuda to stop the onslaught of pathetic cinema?
Ask me, i’d say not many are going to appreciate the experience. Firstly because it speaks well of Muslims and secondly because most Hindus(who are a majority of the audience) love to hate Muslims without rhyme or reason. Its called the bitter truth, which sadly might get in the way of a good piece of art.
Anyway getting back to the film, I thought it is a good film, but could’ve done with a bit of trimming.
Certain events are explored in the film. Two musician brothers, liberal thinking Muslims from Lahore go different ways in life. The older one, Mansoor(Shaan) falls in love with music and goes to America to study it. The younger one, Sarmad(Fawad Khan) gets influenced by a ‘maulana’ and goes the fundamentalist way. A Muslim man Sher Shah(Hameed Sheikh) despite being a liberal Muslim all his life, suddenly wants his British daughter, Mary(Iman Ali) married off to a Muslim. Then, on September 11th, the World Trade Centre comes crashing down due to terrorist attacks and all hell is let loose. Muslims are hated in America and Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan hate America.
The film tries to explore the problems Muslims face within the community, with fundamentalists hating the liberal ones and also with the world after September 11th.
Shaan has done an exceptional job as the musician who is wronged. His scenes in the prison cell are extremely well captured. Specially the ‘I Love Usama’ one. Genius writing. Fawad Khan is good, he’s got the role of a weak person which he executes with conviction. The shoot-out scene as well as his outburst in the court are worth a mention. Iman Ali is alright. Having such a large role, she should’ve worked more on her emoting. Whether she laughs or cries, it looks the same. Naseeruddin Shah is there for nothing more than 7 minutes, but is he effective. The courtroom scene where Naseer cites examples from various texts is hair-raising. He captivates your attention and how, leave alone the extremely fluent Urdu. Rasheed Naz is a revelation. He’s got a few dialogues here and there, but he’s extremely good. You can’t help but marvel at the way he manipulates Fawad Khan. Austin Marie and Hameed Sheikh are adequate.
Good Scenes:
1) The scene where the rehearsal for a New Year concert is taking place.
2) The ‘I Love Usama’ scene.
3) The courtroom sequences.
I would recommend Khuda Kay Liye to 2 kinds of people:
a) People who have the ability to digest that no religion is bad. Its only certain human beings in every religion that do bad things.
b) People who believe that humanism is more important than any religion or its laws.