Naam Shabana
Director- Shivam Nair
Starring- Tapsee Pannu, Manoj Bajpayee, Akshay Kumar and Prithvi
Rating- Waaav, so woman centric. Err NOT!
Naam Shabana is a special film. It has two songs in a club. One of them is an item number called Baby Besharam. Because it’s high time women can be unapologetically besharam too. See how progressive, how woman centric!! That is Naam Shabana for you; a film that wants to preach that heroism is irrespective of gender and hence Shabana, a college and martial arts student is picked by an undercover Indian Intelligence agency.
It’s so woman centric, so woman centric, that they had to hire Mrs. Funny Bones’ husband to help our Shabana in the climax of the film. Ajay (Akshay Kumar) comes, reaches out to the spotlight, shifts it on himself, earns all the whistles and applause and exits like a boss.
There are two major fight sequences in the climax, one involving Shabana and the main baddie, the other involving Ajay and baddie’s right hand. There is a slight difference though. While Ajay beats his opponent blue and black, Shabana struggles against the big baddie (Prithvi) and gains victory only by a fluke. It is this difference that exposes the irony of it all. It’s understandable that women can be physically weaker than men. But you must have chosen a lady officer for a reason, right? A reason that NEVER gets explored in the film.
“Women have it in their DNA, they are born spies.” Explains Manoj Bajpayee to Shabana why she has been selected. We hence expect some shrewd spying in the offing. Some strategizing where Shabana’s strengths are revealed that justify her involvement in such a high profile case. Instead we get a montage of her rigorous training against a song that has inspiring lyrics like Aandhi, Toofan and Zinda. Waaaav, so amazing…we have never seen this before except in Mary Kom, Bhag Milkha Bhag, Brothers, Dangal, Sultan, Saala Khadoos…phew! There is hardly any convincing reason in the film why Shabana is chosen for ‘one of the most important intelligence operations.’
Some of the sequences are mind blowing. The agents from the intelligence finally pin the villain down. This is serious shit ok. Like they have been chasing him for ten years and all. They beat him, punch him, interrogate him and then finally excuse him alone because he wants to go do susu!! The villain looks into the bathroom mirror with a smug smile, thinking bewakoof saale. I started rooting for him. I was like these intelligence guys deserve it for letting ten years of chasing, down the susu drain.
You see I want to like this film. I promise I really do. But in the first five minutes into the film, they show a man taking a picture on his Blackberry. Burp!! No no I am not judging here. Hell I am. Because the man takes a high resolution, sharp, high definition picture of a man sitting 5 miles away. Yeh Blackberry hain ya Nat Geo ka 1628793 X DSLR?
Akshay Kumar in his 15 minutes appearance pulls a SRK in a Lux ad on us. We find him in a tub and choke on our popcorn. And then there is Anupam Kher in a pointless role. He has borrowed a vig from Donald Trump and colored it black. Yikes!!
Tapsee Pannu gets a couple of emotional scenes right but her straight-suppress-my-feelings-face gets too monotonous. The film makes unnecessary judgments on civilians and their choices in order to glorify the defense. Err. Not cool! The film has a few beautiful shots of Mumbai, especially the ones shot in an Iranian café, but the overall plot, the execution, the slow pace and the lazy editing make it a rather dull watch.
-Lokesh Dharmani
(This is my weekly review on Masala!)
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