Saturday, September 6, 2008

He did it on a Wednesday

Thanks to Ronnie Screwvala, that we got to watch movies like Aamir, Life in a Metro, Rang De Basanti, Khosla ka Ghosla and now A Wednesday. A Wednesday is a movie based on the backdrop of terrorism, but it's different from plenty of other movies on terrorism we got to watch recently. The movie brings two of the finest actors of Hindi film industry together in well defined no-nonsense roles.

Commissioner of Police Prakash Rathore gets a call from an unknown number claiming that he has planted bombs at different locations in Mumbai and to prove his claim he guides the Police team to a bomb planted at Colaba Police station. In return the unknown caller demands release of four terrorists. The caller is played by Naseeruddin Shah and Prakash Rathore is a no-nonsense cop played by Anupam Kher. This leads to start of a high speed thriller involving two other cops played by Jimmy Shergil and Amir Bashir and a news reporter played by Deepal Shaw. There is a twist in the end and a brilliant monologue by Naseeruddin Shah about problems of the common man.

There are so many movies getting made on terrorism, but this one is different. It has a story to tell, which it does without deviating from the objective. There are no subplots, not forced songs in the movie. The movie progresses in a straight line and it's a short film and does not take much of your time. All the actors have performed their part brilliantly and dialogues are very well written. Specially the last conversation between Naseer and Kher. You don't want any songs in such movie and I am glad there are none. This is one good thriller made with a twist in the end and it forces you to think. Not to forget, this is first attempt of the director Neeraj Pandey, who has written the script as well. I am looking for more from him, he certainly seems to be a good story teller.

I would rate this one as 8 out of 10 and would recommend it to everyone.