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Futile ‘mission’ to box office

Film: Mission Istaanbul

Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Zayed Khan

Director: Apoorva Lakhia

It is hard to admire ‘Mission Istaanbul’. Little to appreciate, even less to admire, director Apoorva Lakhia’s film shows all signs of bankruptcy of ideas that is the privilege of the mediocre. For all the hype, and lesser expectations, ‘Mission Istaanbul’ is a ragtag coalition of inexplicable action, lots of loopholes, and three – or was it four? – songs that do nobody any justice.

But, hey a few years back, the film would not have seemed as obnoxious as it does now. Undirected energy went unnoticed, so unaccounted for. Come on, you got to be kidding the audiences, or more likely yourself, if you felt by putting an oval-faced white man behind an American flag you could sell them the dummy of Bush. Likewise, all the digs at Osama bin Laden, Al Jazeera. Then all the references to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is reality – or is it perceived reality? – cloaked as poor fiction.

The film’s fabric is tearing at the seams. And nobody is fooled.

For convenience though Lakhia chooses a simple story: after the U.S. and U.K. Turkey is the next target of terrorists – wonder what happened to India? Was the memory again a sieve? – and one media house has devised a technique whereby a terrorist probably dead is revived through CDs to evoke awe and horror. If there is a guise here, it is thin. If it is an attempt to strike a chord, it fails. A journalist from India ends up joining hands with an Indian at the receiving end of a terrorist attack. And lo, Bush and company might sleep, but they want to put an end to terror by raiding the offices of the channel!

Too many reels are wasted, too much directionless untamed energy in full blast before the final denouement.

And all along, the cast, led by Vivek Oberoi and Zayed Khan, and ‘helped’ by Shriya Saran and newcomer Shwetta Bhardwaj, keeps pace.

Fragmented, deceitful, ‘Mission Istaanbul’ has no sting. As for the chances of box office success, well, mission impossible!

ZIYA US SALAM

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