Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Cast: Zayed Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Nikitan Dheer
Mission Istaanbul, this week's new Bollywood release, is not only a bad film, it's also a highly offensive film. If it was merely a mindless action film, one might have been more forgiving, but in fact Mission Istaanbul disguises itself as a film that takes a serious look at international terrorism, as a film that questions the commercialization of news.
These are interesting themes no doubt, but themes that this film not only doesn't explore, but barely dwells on superficially.
Zayed Khan plays Vikas Sagar, a prominent Indian television journalist who's just landed a three-month familiarization assignment with the Al-Johara channel in Turkey. The channel's run by media-mogul Ghazni (played by Nikitan Dheer), who Sagar soon realizes, is a dodgy fellow. Vivek Oberoi plays mysterious well-wisher Rizwan Khan who warns Sagar that his life is in danger, alerting him about Ghazni's eerily cozy relationship with the most feared terrorist outfit. When Sagar realises that Ghazni's doing more than just reporting the news at Al-Johara, he teams up with Rizwan to uncover the dirty secret.
Ten minutes into Mission Istaanbul and any hopes you might have had of watching a smart, realistic thriller, come crashing down. In director Apoorva Lakhia's world, serious news journalists turn up for important field reporting in body-hugging ganjis; they not only leave their cell-phones on during major political interviews but also attend to personal calls in the middle of such coveted assignments; and being a news journalist according to Lakhia means you're the kind of tech-savvy guy who can hack into computers at the snap of a finger.
The director also makes a mockery of a global concern as serious as terrorism by portraying it in such a matter-of-fact, trite manner that his film is more a disservice to the cause he claims to espouse.
Mission Istaanbul is a miscalculation on the part of both the film's writer and director. I could go into details and take apart every other scene, but frankly we don't have the time for that. Considering the film relies so heavily on action, you'd expect some edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting moments but what you get are a bunch of tackily shot chase scenes and one particularly over-the-top set piece involving our two heroes jumping on to an attacking helicopter's landing skids.
I don't have words to describe that embarrassing product-placement scene in which our heroes make an impossible escape, then pop open cans of sponsor cola and rattle off its tagline with false bravado.
Look closely and perhaps you'll notice Mission Istaanbul is full of homoerotic undertones. Whether it's the manner in which the camera lingers over Nikitan Dheer's every muscle, every sinew; or that awkward scene in the Turkish bath where all characters dressed in nothing but towels, their torsos glistening with sweat, meet and greet each other with bear-hugs, or discuss wounds on their bodies. Even that wink-wink, playful relationship between Vivek Oberoi and Zayed Khan is nothing short of sheer man-on-man love.
And then finally that all-shirts-off, bare chest-against-bare chest climatic duel between Zayed and Niketan. The point I make might become all the more clear if you consider the redundancy of the female characters in this film.
Often even bad films are salvaged by fine actors, but the opposite is true in the case of Mission Istaanbul. The film boasts career-worst performances by everyone involved. Nikitan Dheer is more wooden than a plank, his single expression of rage resembling the Incredible Hulk, no less. Shabbir Ahluwalia as a terrorist band-leader is mercifully reduced to making big eyes into camera, and Sunil Shetty as the Al-Johara journo speaks with an American accent that is indecipherable so you're not particularly upset when he's bumped off prematurely. Zayed Khan is so weak, so feeble, so out of his depth here, you want to jump into the screen and smack him for his unrehearsed unresearched, unstudied performance. This is one of those performances that will be referred to even years later at acting schools in "how-not-to-act" lectures; it's a performance Zayed will find hard to live down. Vivek Oberoi, surprisingly, doesn't do much better. He's confident yes, but he plays his part with such an annoying sense of assuredness that it gets to you after a point. That knowing smirk, his shameless wooing of the camera, someone please tell him to stop.
In the end the bucks stop with director Apoorva Lakhia who's also credited as the co-writer of this film. He takes an interesting premise and botches it up with neither style nor substance. I'm going to go with one out of five for Mission Istaanbul, it's one of those films that's so bad that you might actually want to check it out. Because believe me there's nothing more amusing than a terrible film that takes itself so seriously.
Rating: 1 / 5 (Poor)
this is the review.I just copied from the actual website & posted it here.i think there is i line each mentioning niketan & shabir..
Edited by LUV_shabboo - 17 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
All things Korean
Ganesh Kartikeya
