Rating: 3.5/5 stars (Three-and-half-star)
Star cast: Atul Kulkarni, Nana Patekar, Sanjeev Jaiswal, Ganesh Yadav
What’s Good: The cinematography, the lucid flow of the narration, all performances.
What’s Bad: The style of narration suits the news-mode more than the movie-mode.
Watch or Not?: For
reliving the intensity of the attacks and this well retold narration,
boasting of power packed performances by all, especially Nana Patekar,
this one is definitely worth a watch.
It is not a story being told. Not an accident either. The Attacks Of 26/11
is the set of terror attacks that hit Mumbai on November 26, 2008 being
produced into reel with some really appreciable cinematography and
mentionable performances.
Some native fishermen trek in to the
Arabian looking for a rare fish that is found only in deep water. After a
while they realize they might have entered international waters, in
this case, that of Pakistan. In the mean time they see a Pakistani
trawler in distress. While the Indian fishermen try to find out what is
wrong, they’re faced with the terrorists coercing them into helping the
10 terrorists to reach Mumbai. All fishermen are killed and dumped at
sea by the time they reach a shabby Mumbai port.
Here on begins the communication between
the terrorists and the commoners. The 10 break into smaller groups and
attack pre designed areas. The back grounds of the terrorists are not
focused upon much as are the little details of the victims. There is
often shown some moments of sanity and human considerations on the part
of Ajmal Kasab, played by Sanjeev Jaiswal, which were suppressed without
delay by his companion in the ruthless strikes.
The climax shows Kasab’s sentence to be
hanged till death in action. Crude scenes of violence make the movie
unsuitable for the feeble hearted. By the end of the movie the Joint
Commissioner of Police, played by Nana Patekar, Mumbai, passes with
distinction in the departmental scrutiny and goes to head the Anti
Terrorism Squad.
The whole movie sees the Police in a
very glorious light. And the attacks are being narrated by Nana Patekar,
giving a concrete feel to the content. For the viewer, it is reliving
the shame of religious extremism, the pain of loss and the rise of
bravery from amongst the common.
The Attacks of 26/11 Review: Script Analysis
It is not much of a script. If you have
been watching the news during and post- 26/11 attacks, you probably know
it all. Even the case updates with regards to Ajmal Kasab will provide
you much of the information that Nana Patekar goes on the reveal. So may
be for a movie based on a highly spoken-about terrorist attack, The
Attacks Of 26/11 fails to break any ice with the script. But keeping
that in mind, the movie has a fresh feel that makes you want to sit
through and view the very well sequenced script. Sunil Wadhwani does
commendable work at editing.
The Attacks of 26/11 Review: Star Performances
We miss Atul Kulkarni, though it makes
sense to say his performance was critically well placed. Nana Patekar,
if we can ignore, at times, unwanted voice modulation, does an amazing
job of playing the Joint Commissioner of Police to a city that did not
even have time to recover from an attack before having to face another
one of similar or higher magnitudes. About Sanjeev Jaiswal, his
expressions are commendable though his lines only match them up pretty
late into the film.
The Attacks of 26/11 Review: Direction, Music & Technical Aspects
Director Ram Gopal Verma went to the scenes in November 2008 to do some 1st
hand research. Well, we can see the effect. The film is well directed
keeping in mind it put together a massive number of abstract characters.
Cinematography however wins over anything else. Harshraj Shroff and M.
Ravichandran Thevar liven up the shades of the sky and the cityscape to
explain the pathos in vivid visuals. Vikram Biswas worked pretty well
keeping in mind the sound score of the movie set the theme of a
psychological thriller (from the terrorists’ point of view ), in
combination with that of an incidental narration.
The Attacks of 26/11 Review: The Last Word
We have seen it too many times, the
quotes from the Holy religious texts being explained to the wrongdoer
after the deed is done. We see it here again. That said, in the
aftermath of the recent Hyderabad blasts; see this just to know the
larger picture.
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