Kurbaan

Starring Kareena kapoor Saif Ali Khan and vivek Oberoi.

Debutant director Rensil D’ Souza may have chosen the Karan Johar production house for his launch pad but he makes a film different from the Kuch Kuch Hota hai genre. Largely the film could be seen as yet another justification of terrorism in a world which has lensed itself with prejudice. On both sides of this prejudice are persons with baggage and the innocent pay the price. Within the precincts of ‘our – cinema’, the debutant Director makes an interesting essay. Tight and sleek, the film is watchable more than really talkable. The film is worth watching and if nothing for some riveting and sincere performances coming specially from the support cast and some excellent technical support. The bane of the film, as with our cinema, is the climax where you are let down. It gets chaotic, simplistic, and bloody without conviction.

The story line revolves round Professor Ehsan Khan (Saif) who woos colleague Professor Avantika (Kareena) a visiting NRI and marries her. The young Professor couple go to U.S. and establish a home in an ‘Indian neighbourhood’. Soon they run into Bhaijaan (Om Puri) and Nasreen Aapa (Kirron Kher). A instance of domestic violence in the neighbourhood raises the first questions of suspicion and as she digs she is confronted with the can of worms. A trifle too late and now pregnant too, the world around her crashes.
There is also Rehana (Dia Mirza) a tele journalist who is a victim of a bomb blast. Rehana’s fiancée colleague Riaz Masood (Vivek Oberoi) swears to identify the killers and thus runs into Avantika.
The FBI is just closing into the killer group, even as the fatal plan to send the final instalment of the message of death, disaster and hatred is being executed with ruthless accuracy. The suicide bombers are out their hunting for their headlines and victims and taking their last tube rides. Innocent victims blissfully unaware of lurking death embrace the killers in their midst. The sacrifice is on…… Kurbaan.
The dialogue by Anurag Kashyap and Niranjan Iyengar is crisp. Each of the characters speak even the most ordinary of sentences with a certain accuracy that is a delicate match of the rhetorical and the normal. There lies the skill. The cinematography is good. Debutant Director Rensil D’Souza may have the backing of Rich Bag Karan Johar, but to his credit, it be said that the film is focused, organised and clear. Fortunately this is outside the mould of “Kuch-Kuch. Kabhi Kabhi” school of cinema.
.Om Puri looks a trifle jaded. Kirron Kher delivers. Vivek Oberoi is hardly given the space that would have made the difference for him. Kareena is gorgeous. Her performance has shades of poor, good, average and brilliant. In the looks department – she reigns but while acting, there are moments of synthetic execution. Saif lives his role. In fact he executes the task with arithmetic precision and holds the script together with his understanding of the psyche of a man who has been wronged and has since chosen to be the avenger. Truly a noteworthy performance.
Can terrorism succeed? Is it the answer if not the only answer to Oil Imperialism? How long, just how long will the innocent be the helpless victims of the war of the powerful and the deceiving wicked? How near is the doom day given the level of terrorism? Is the queer match of technology and hatred pushing mankind towards the fatal button? Kurbaan is perhaps a step and albeit a seemingly justified one towards Armageddon.
Coming in the light of New York it raises the question as to whether the world has justified its conclusions on terrorists and therefore cannot find a solution to it. As reams get written and reels done up, blasts, killings and death rules. Blood yet again is scripting out times. The message that hatred cannot win causes seems too naive. Yet there can be no human problem that cannot have a human solution.
Or, for humanity is terrorism the last layer in the Pandora’s box?
L. Ravichander.