I din’t expect anything at all when I decided to rent Manishanker’s MUKHBIR. After all his 16 DECEMBER wasn’t quite impressive while TANGO CHARLIE just turned out to be overtly dramatic.
If the poor fate of these two films wasn’t enough, RUDRAKSH was a disaster and didn’t even get an opening inspite of the presence of Sanjay Dutt and Bipasha Basu.This is what made me wonder what would MUKHBIR have to offer with lesser star like Sameer Dattani along with a bunch of character artists and a flop director at the helm. With near to negligible promotion and absolutely zilch hype, MUKHBIR was always meant to be a disaster.
Well, it is a disaster, but purely on box office terms, because as a film it surprises you and more than that takes you on 2 hour adventurous never seen before thrilling ride that has enough action and drama with an undercurrent of emotions throughout the proceedings to keep you entertained.It shakes you by telling a tale of a spy that could be the reality but all this is done in a dramatic manner without getting into a preachy mode.
Sammir Dattani an Orphan is trapped by the law as a teenager, he is trained by Inspector Rathod (Om Puri) to work as an undercover agent. Rathod gets him to infiltrate in Naxalite and radical organizations to expose their secret missions.
In one such undercover operation, he transportss into an underworld group and works for Pasha (Sushant Singh). His mission is to trace notorious gangster Mustafa who smuggles human body organs to foreign countries.While he’s successful in his mission he has to kill Rathod to save his life. Rathod’s friend from intelligence department, Officer Rahman (Suniel Shetty) sets him into a terrorist group headed by Saaya (Rahul Dev). Now his mission is to track and avert a terrorist attack in the city of Mumbai that’s supported by foreign power.
Good part of MUKHBIR is that its fast paced and moves rapidly.Even though the film is not big budgeted venture, it is to the credit to of director Manishanker that he makes best use of the available resources and doesn’t cut corners when it comes to telling a scene efficiently and effectively.
So many times have we seen that a film starts off well and remains good till the interval before the effect fizzles out towards the latter reels. It is just the opposite in case of MUKHBIR as after a decent beginning, the drama builds up well to make you look forward to what would happen next on screen.The movie reaches to an all time high aftr Sameer is shifted to the Hyderbad gang. The sequence thereafter is pulse pounding .The death scene of Om Puri especially is a lump in your throat experience!
Perforamances are quite good.Sameer is a fine actor, but the level of performance is very high this time. Om puri makes an impact in a brief role. Sunil Shetty is first-rate. Rahul Dev is commendable.
Overall film is a well-made one . But there were many factors that went against it:It released on Multiple releases week [29th August , 08]and also the Idd Period and the zilch hype . Its fate was disastrous .