Zameen Hindi Movie
Debutant filmmaker Rohit Shetty deserves full credit for making Zameen a credible film. Despite obvious flaws and Pakistan bashing (the mantle seems to have been taken off Anil Sharma's and Sunny Deol's shoulders), the first time director manages to hold the film together.
Partially based on the December 1999 hijack of the Indian Airlines airbus, which was taken to Kandahar in order to secure the release of Masood Azhar and two others, the film doesn't meander into irrelevant issues.
Ajay Devgan adds another feather to his recent spate of successful performances. As Col Ranawat - even though he looks too young for the job with minimal dialogue for support - Devgan makes his character work because of the menacing intensity that he brings into the role. Not only to let go of the enemy once he has been identified, his strength comes across in the manner with which he deals with militants, superiors, politicians and ex-colleagues alike.
Unlike Bachchan Jr. who just barely finds his footing in the film, Devgan's screen presence carries the film through. Abhishek fails to convince as the traumatized man who was rebuffed for making a blunder when he was in the army and who needs to prove a point to himself. He's makes an impact but only in patches and is very conscious of being his father's son. Unless an effort is made towards changing that stance, chances are the Bachchan Jr. will never explore his potential.
But the blunder that Shetty commits (and that speaks volumes for the research that was put in) is that he fails to explain how an ex-Army officer (Bachchan) can find himself another job as the Additional Commissioner of Police Jai subsequently. One, Army officers cannot resign on a whim or because their seniors (in this case Ranawat) have asked them to and secondly, they cannot join the police force without first qualifying in the civil services or the IPS.
Willful liberties such as these do make life easier for both our heroes, but it sure hurts the intelligent viewers' sensibilities. Glitches such as these apart, Zameen makes for a watch just once - if only to see the difference between Sunny style of Pak bashing (loud and tasteless) and Devgan's style (restrained with a lot of conviction).
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