When Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher met on A WEDNESDAY
[the post may contain spoilers, intentional and unintentional]
“the tragic feeling is invoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing - a sense of personal dignity.” -ARTHUR MILLER, “Tragedy and the Common Man”
The final installment and probably the weakest of UTV’S terrorism trilogy, A WEDNESDAY; the story of a commoner, a regular guy just like us, frustrated with living in a sense of incessant fear, anger and self pity decides to take matters into his own hands, we don’t know who he is, his religion or even what his political stands are, to us he remains just a COMMON MAN. A man overlooked, unappreciated, belittled, one whose opinion is seldom valued. The ultimate underdog in a fight of power and intellect.
It must be appreciated that debutant director, neeraj pandey’s script was based on an interesting idea, one having both a mass as well as an intellectual appeal. But alas what appears good on paper seldom translates onto the screen; here too it’s almost the same. Almost because it perhaps is saved by two of the most celebrated performers of Indian parallel cinema, two of the finest character actors in our country; Anupam kher and Naseeruddin Shah. Because not only do they give their best and possibly the meatiest performance in a long, long time but they lift a film almost entirely on the weight of their acts…
The story of the film centers around four hours on a sunny Wednesday afternoon when the commissioner of police receives a bomb threat from an unknown caller demanding the release of five prisoners, claimed to have hidden rdx in at least five places across Mumbai, pushing even an experienced commissioner on the brink of failure, exhorting him to his limits, to the threshold of his capacity.
As a film, A WEDNESDAY relies highly on the prowess of the two leads, ANUPAM KHER as the chief commissioner of police and NASEERUDDIN SHAH. And boy o boy they don’t disappoint. Both Kher and Shah in probably their meatiest and well written role in a while slips perfectly into their respective character. Kher playing his character with compelling power and tenacity, his unblinking eyes is haunting as he searches every trick in his book to go one up against his counterpart, Shah on the other hand plays his role with unnatural coolness and even a touch of humor, and a sense of simplicity which lacks in so many of the characters and villains in the weekly bollywood fare. Armed with the best lines he walks away with the audience’s applause, rarely do we see an actor cast such a perfect charm of mystery as well as a sense of relation to the audience. One of the few moments when he receives uninterrupted uncut footage in a scene towards the end where he explains his motives and mission to the police commissioner is not only the finest in the film but also probably the most compelling scene we have witnessed in a long time on celluloid, delivered with utmost fluidity, his ease makes the one of the most difficult to pull off sequence not only convincing but makes it seem ridiculously easy.
Alas for the film such scenes are few and far between in order to effectively build up any sense of fear and more so a sense of despair.
Films like this needed to boast of an efficient supporting cast, Jimmy Shergill and Aamir Bashir providing just that, shergill albeit merely giving support plays his part well. The rest though seems somewhat amateurish and surely we could have done without Deepal Shaw as an Utv News journalist.
The problem of A Wednesday lies with its execution not conceptualization, while the director manages to maintain the pace of the film; he does so at the cost of flashy camera works and a thumping sound track which is sore to the ear. Indeed the weakest point in WEDNESDAY has to be its soundtrack, still recovering from the background scores of rgv’s triplets this year, both the stereo in the theatres as well as our ears are tired and Wednesday’s background score seems almost intolerable at certain points. I wonder when people will learn other alternative ways of creating tension than just simply pumping the speakers with what can be best described as simply sound.
A WEDNESDAY in its heart is earnest and moralistic without giving a feeling of being preached. The director tries to convey a meaningful yet highly debatable message in the most entertaining way he could, though somewhat lost in translation it is still an enjoyable watch on a lazy Wednesday afternoon.
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add disclaimer rusted rick… you are giving out the end…
gud
@pratim da
have added the alert, thanks for reminding
This is a pretty weak, pretentious film. Has all the ingredients of a ‘modern’ Hollywood thriller, though looking quite amatuerish all through. For example, the ‘war room’ is straight out of a standard Hollywood thriller, people looking busy on computers doing god knows what; and the ‘hacker’ simply walks in from Die Hard 4.
The biggest flaw is four cardboard villians, for a film supposedly highbrow and message-based. In fact, you can find such samples in any Guddu Dhanoa/Anil Sharma/random action flicks in the last couple of years. This is the type of movie where we have easy evil, written specifically to make things very very easy for a formula thriller.
The common man’s despair is so very true, we all feel it, live it, every day. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are other despairs slowly inching their way into our lives. Our movies (at least those that take themselves seriously) should try to make sense of these instead of inventing simplistic, Hollywoody, main-bhi-Bush solutions.
(PS: There is blatant in-house plugging too. UTV is producing the movie so we have ‘UTV News’ playing a prominent part. C’mon, what is this? a Subhash Ghai movie?)
apart from the anarcho Naseer , utterly crap. so amateurish.. ah worst i have seeen this year. just back from the show. utterly disappointed .. fkin ‘do urself a favor’ adarsh …
No, I do not agree, and here’s why. I was too engrossed in this film and in the pace which it flew to notice about the soundtrack, the camerawork etc (which u guys have pointed as the main fault lines.)
The problem with any great message…is that no matter what medium you choose (film, book etc)…the message will far outshine the medium.
This film has its flaws yes - but it is one of the better films of the year…and undoubtedly…with one of the best messages of the year.
Why are we even talking about “messages”. Everybody will talk about it not being preachy and then add to it by saying there is a message. I don’t care to know if there are differences (subtle/huge) among the two, I hate both in cinema.
shhhh! don’t give out the end
everyone else… please rush to the nearest theatre. this must not be missed. Here’s a review that I wrote today,
http://www.gauravs.com/movie-review/a-wednesday
From the numerous threads and plethora of opinions one can find on this forum i guess complimets a film like “A wednesday”
that’s what the movie is supposed to evoke. If you are looking to find faults in this venture, well there are aplenty matter of fact when i got over the high which this movie surely gave me i couldn’t but help laughing at those flaws but hey did it struk a chord with me the answer is a resounding yes!
So who cares about Bakkground muzikk when my heart was pounding with anxiety, my eyes were glued to screen for the entire duration of those thrillpacked 100 min isn’t that the biggest compliment to the movie and its makers i mean who wants “gyan”.
its was supposed to be a thriller and surely kept everyone on tenterhooks as far as i noticed. In that outstanding scence of Naseer outburst(ans what a outburst it was so subtule but so freaking evocative) i had a baby crying sitting next to me and i wasn’t the only one who wanted to choke her at that moment.
Moives are about striking a chord with the audiance. The importance of entertainment in this time and age cann’t be truely judged untill you have all kind of entertainment banned say for an year and you will find those very scary looking news readers will rip apart stomoch of the very government while anger of aam janta will spill over on the road.
“escapism” is essential and vital for survival for many indians. they all go to find themselves winning those battles they have lost without even fighting. a true politican exploit Fear and hatred a movie maker try to titilate our alterego say he give a blow job to your defeated soul”
coming back to the movie and its highpoint here are few.
1. energy you will get sucked into it before you know
2. performance, nuff said about kher and nasser and deservedly so but for me shergill shone like never before for a movie like this you need enough “high voltage” to hold the audiance he used his silent and eyes to express a lot. the guy who played the terrorist, aamir bashir were all excelled.
3. I for one thought backgrond muzzik gelled perfectly with the film but my judgement might be blurred as my car stero is pathetic.
4. One of best thing which i am surprised nobody has mentioned as yet was the “Hello aquiantance” that was the real gem and so to me was the movie with all its fault and politically incorrectness.
cheers