Movie Review: Kabul Express
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The Reviewer |
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Watched it |
In a Theatre |
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Bottomline | The message in the film is good. Inspite of being a slow paced narrative, it does not appear to be a drag - 1hr 45min. The locales in Kabul are captured quite well. (Could have been even better) The comical sequences that are present right from the start to the end are a very welcome aspect of the film. The absence of this might have made the film as drab as a soulless documentary. Dialogues are very well written. (Specially the Coke-Pepsi, Madhuri Dixit-USA, People universally liking cricket-John's closeup, etc.) The background score is very good. The music (OST of the film) is also pretty neat. Though the film only has the Kabul Fiza number playing with the credits. Background score is pretty decent. Screenplay is good. Script decent. Inspite of this being a very good attempt by Yashraj in doing something that isn't their domain (Non lovey-dovey war ravaged heroineless film based on a true subject), the film lacks the punch. There could have been sequences that could have been heart wrenching - One's that standout are when the Mujahids are killing the Talibs, When Imran Khan's daughter lifts her burkha to show her face to her father, and a few more. Room could have been created for the role of the American Journalist to have more meaning (Characterization not the best). Screenplay and Cinematography cannot be compared to Hollywood flicks. Expected a lot more deft in these areas. |
Peformances | This film rests on the shoulder of two men - Arshad Warsi and Salman Shahid. Both are daringly different for a film of this genre - Specially the portions when the two interact - Superb! Hanif Hum Ghum (Mujahid - Khyber) is more than decent. John Abraham appears to be listless and clueless. The American Journalist Linda Arsenio is barely present in the film. |
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Recommendation |
Watch it - And I would recommend watching it on a big screen. |
Expectation | ** 1/2 |
Rating | A bit under *** |
posted by Jimit Shah at 6:43 PM
1 Comments:
Do you know that the best scenes in this film, the one where they fight about who the best all-rounder is and the one in which they fight about who started the war, are direct pick ups from a very famous foreign film called "No Man's Land", which won an Oscar in competition to Lagaan. That downed the quality quotient for me.
Else I think that the fact that the characterization was deliberately low key because the story and the events were given more importance. I was glad that there was no hero, heroine or villian in this film.
I dint think that the american journalist, John Abraham or any one else required any more specific characterization.
But yes, it is worth one watch.
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