Just another day

Anupam Kher, again, this time in a lead role. Facing off with Naseerudin Shah. Minus song and dance, and other silly distractions. The casting is reason enough to celebrate; the plot and the treatment matches up. Almost.

One Wednesday afternoon, Mumbai is under grave threat. A Wednesday is another in the sudden spurt of recent films which deal with Terror and Mumbai (UTV’s last releases Mumbai Meri Jaan and Aamir). Police commissioner Prakash Rathod’s cell buzzes. An anonymous caller (only we, the viewers, know it is Naseer) from an unlisted number wants a bunch of dreaded terrorists released, or else he will trigger the bombs he’s placed in parts of the city.

The cat-and-mouse game that ensues also involves two hot-shot cops, Arif and Jai (Jimmy Sheirgill and Aamir Bashir), and scoop-hungry reporter Naina (Deepal Shaw). There’s a twist in the tale which we won’t reveal, but this we have to say: There’s curiously little tension generated as the proceedings unspool. You see Naseer powering up his laptop, on the terrace of an under-construction building, with his many cell phones-with-unidentifiable-sim cards. You see Anupam marshalling his forces from Mumbai’s police headquarters, and barking orders at his troops. But there isn’t a single heart-stopping moment. And the vigilante-ism that is revealed in the end is discomfiting: do we blow up people who blow us up? Does an eye for an eye take us anywhere?