SHANGHAI (Hindi) - A Political Thriller - The Plot - Adapted from Greek writer Vassilis Vassilikos’ 1966 novel, Z, the film, like the book and the 1969 Costa-Gavras thriller based on it, opens with a political assassination that is made to look like an accident. A political activist Dr Ali Ahmedi (Prosenjit Chatterjee, a suave videsi  male version of our own desi  Mamata Banarjee) does a 'la Nano by actively protesting against a business park which that displace hundreds of poor families.He is helped by his former student, follower and lover Shalini Sahay (Kalki Koechlin), daughter of a general facing a probe in a Rs 40-crore scam.  Those in power – including a woman chief minister (Supriya Pathak), her principal secretary (Farooque Sheikh) and a local politician who is part of the ruling coalition – are determined to stop the anti-displacement campaigner in his track.Permission is denied for the rally and a violent demonstration is organized against Dr Ahmedi. And then, one final act of desperation knocks the campaigner out of the picture, in cold blood, hit by a pick-up van driven by hired killers.A public outcry ensues and the activist’s strong-willed wife, Aruna Ahmedi (Tilottama Shome) joins Shalini Sahay (Kalki Koechlin), in demanding prompt action. 

The under-pressure chief minister (Supriya Pathak) and her principal Secretary (Farooqi Sheikh) set up a one-man commission of inquiry with a mandate to probe whether the police force was responsible for any negligence. The core question – was it an accident or a murder? – is placed beyond the commission’s terms of reference.

But IAS officer T A Krishnan (Abhay Deol), the man assigned the job of finding the truth, ferrets out more information than the powers that be had bargained for. It endangers everybody caught in the vortex of the case, including a videographer Joginder Parmar (Emraan Hashmi), who films political events in Bharat Nagar and makes pornographic videos. The Climax is rather predictable from the the very start, in fact from the very first scene and so nothing much to write about the end.

The film has been crafted rather well by Urmi Juvekar (screen play) and the director Dibakar Banerjee. The first half of the film starts rather slowly and one feels confused and perplexed as the film meanders its way and finally arrives at the midpoint. One has to be familiar with colloquial Hindi to understand the dry and sarcastic humor. Though it pleased me to note that for once a HINDI FILM makes fun of the way a Northie speaks 'firangi' English instead of deliberately making fun of south Indian languages (especially Tamil) and Abay Deol deliberately avoids making fun of Tamil, though there are a few places in the film the director does indulge in this well known and used Bollywood art of desi comedy. All the actors have performed their parts very well and a big kudos to the director for casting and extracting the best out of each one of them. Emraan, Abhay and Kalki excel. The songs are vibrant and colorful but it fades away from one's memory as soon as you leave the theater. On the whole a truthful and honest attempt from the director to stick to his plot and story line which takes the film a clear notch above the mediocrity we are used to these days. A film the producer and his team can be proud of and probably serve as an impetus to strive harder to make a film that can be termed as a classic the world of Indian cinema can be proud of!

Till next time, hC