Diluted of its needlessly large doses of violence in the climax and
stripped of the loitering into romance this anti-terror tale of sleeper cells
and a victim nation is Vipul Shah – Akshay get together. This is Murgados
reading the pulse of his audience to a nicety. It is not really easy to keep
the audience engrossed for nearly three hours. The “Thupaki” guy is spot on and
achieves the near impossible of having a 40 plus protagonist in romance and
fighting with all the gusto you would associate with a far younger protagonist.
Virat (Akshay) is a member of the Defence Intelligence and by chance catches a
guy on the run after a sleeper cell bomb attack in Mumbai. Virat – a name that
conjures an image of aggression and skill, is now on his own leading a near one
man response to the sleeper cell operations. This story is taut and told with a
style that is crisp and not very heavy. However as he revisits the success
formula , he replicates it and thus fails in an opportunity to make a story
that could have been denuded off its shortcomings. But then success is
formalistic and given the scale of its Tamil version, the film maker obviously
sees no reason to revisit the script.
There is a needless love story added to the entire tale with Saiba (Soonakshi)
playing a college student – (now you know we live a time when you can go back
to college after a sabbatical!!). The initial rejection at a bride searching
event is script space for tease woo and love. Saiba has nothing to do in the
script but just dash in sing a song ask for a smooch and disappear. Virat has a
local police officer in Makhya (Sumeet Narayan – who for a strange reason
behaves like Vinod Mehra) who is clue less about what is happening – an
expression in fact patented by Sumeet Narayan who now looks a bit too pale.
While in the pre recess narration we have Virat being in complete command and
executing a well-made plan of shooting to death twelve members of the sleeper
cell, the post popcorn spell has the clash between the villain (Freddy
Daruwalla) and Virat. While even hear the script is tight and engrossing it
indulgences in needless violence that reduces the taste quotient of the film.
Punch over style seems to be the call.
The film in a way belongs to Akshay Kumar. He translates the role with such
class and vigour that you may well conclude that no contemporary actor would
have done it. As the camera reaches his face and stays on it tells the tale of
an actor who has surely bid farewell to the days of youth, but everything else
about the performance is top grade. He is in his own element (something he does
whenever with Vipul Shah). His sense of timing in humour his capacity to turn
serious and not go over board and the degree of emotions is near perfect from
the stance of popular cinema. The performance in fact is an interesting study
in the context of another brilliant performance witnessed last week from Raj
Kumar Rao – both very impressive, may be as different as chalk is from cheese
but both amazingly absorbing and tale carrying. The film is surely viewable for
just the energy and sincerity of Akshay Kumar – like a Virat , he plays. A
holiday that is bit too long but a holiday worth taking.
Rating: 3 stars
+ Akshay and technical support.
_ violence and length
L. Ravichander.