New York Movie Review

Living alone in a city is boring and so 2 sad and lonely souls went to see New York in its Saturday matinee show.

In a nutshell, New York is brilliant with its weaknesses.

The movie begins with Hollywood movie style FBI raids where Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is detained for possessing weapons. An Asian FBI officer (Irfan Khan) plays a good-cop and bad cop to extract the truth from Omar. Omar is made to tell the history about his friends Sam (John Abraham) and Maya (Katrina Kaif). We find, very interestingly, how Omar, Sam and Maya become friends. The story moves ahead to reveal deeper relations.

Then starts the real story. Sam is a suspect and FBI wants Omar to help them. Omar, pressurised and threatened, agrees and tries to re-enter Sam and Maya's life.

I am going to stop telling the story here. The movie is a mix of drama and thriller.

The movie is a poignant story of what Asians of certain faith went through after the horrific 9/11 attacks. The way it is told is what is new about this movie. Our Bollywood cinema is learning new things and new directors are willing to cross the traditional boundaries of thoughts.

Neil Nitin Mukesh is great, but John Abraham is excellent. I have seen him in other movies where I always thought he was superficial. He was fantastic in this movie. Irfan Khan is as usual with his blend of seriousness and humour. But the crown of acting in this movie goes to Katrina Kaif. She is brilliant. It is amazing to see an actress shed her glamour quotient and enter the territory of deep and sensitive acting. I am impressed with the way she has improved over the years after everyone had called her another glamour girl.

The first person narrative, the editing, direction and acting are all amazing. Keeping songs in background is an achievement considering how our directors fall to peer pressure and insert songs in places that break a movie's continuity.

Finally, I felt the climax was slightly slack. It could have been more tightly handled. I am not suggesting anything is wrong, it was good, just that it should have been handled in a better way.

All in all, brilliant work! Go see it in the nearest movie theater.

Articles on Mumbai Attacks

Now that the Taj and Oberoi have been attacked one can expect some action from our very effective politicians. Hopefully, not with the same efficiency that was seen after Mumbai blasts, Ahmedabad blasts etc.
(Did you observe the "etc." there? Yes, per the standard rules of English, this usage is a valid and reasonable in this case. Soon we will be able to use it twice at the end "Blasts attacks etc. etc.")

Oh sorry, was just supposed to list down the articles,

Sadanand Dhume in WSJ
Rama Bijapurkar in ET
Jerry Rao in Indian Express

Will keep adding as I read them...

The charm of Status quo...

We love status quo, don't we?

As we see the chronology of events, there is a sense of deja-Vu dawning on us.

This in Mumbai, blasts in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bangalore....

Each incident followed by assurances. We will not bow down....we will tackle terror in strongest possible way....we will get back to them.

Then the call for accountability...in the various boxing rings on various media channels who are really the epitome of reporting. They are fair no doubt...fair to the terrorists to whom they gave the live feeds...fair to shocked victims who came out of hotel yet the fair journalist poked his/her mic in his face...fair to the nation which has no clue which drain has swallowed its tax money. Oh yes they are fair!

Then amnesia strikes...ah the blessed moments at film fests, tech fests, and whichever fests....

Then another blast somewhere....

the chronology repeats...

deja vu...

Process maintained - status quo maintained.