Tere Bin Laden: A brilliant satire

Sometimes one's relationship with the movies gets a little strained. Week after week of watching the same item numbers, the snazzy European locations and stilted dialogues catering to the NRIs create a sense of fatigue and boredom. And the film buff almost makes a decision to take a breather and stay away for a while.

But then comes a film like Tere Bin Laden and hope is rekindled all over again.

Recently, we had My Name is Khan which dealt with the tragic aftermath of the 9/11 disaster for ordinary citizens, especially those belonging to the minority community. But debut director Abhishek Sharma's Tere Bin Laden is a film which reveals how ordinary citizens wanting to reside in America must either give up on their ambitions or resort to drastic measures.

Tere Bin Laden is, however, free of drama and emotion. It's a satire about all those wanting to set foot on the promised land. And it works.

Our protagonist Ali Zafar has spent most of the last decade living in Karachi with one single-minded obsession -- getting to the United States of America. He believes his future lies there. He will entertain even the most harebrained scheme as long as it takes him closer to his destination.

Meanwhile, Ali plods through his days working as a reporter for Danka TV, an almost unknown news channel run by Majeed.

On one occasion, when Majeed sends him to cover a rooster crowing competition, Ali meets a chicken farm owner called Noora (Pradhuman Singh), who is an almost perfect lookalike of the most wanted criminal Osama Bin Laden. Ali sees this as an opportunity to make a quick buck, without visualising the far-reaching consequences of his actions.

Since great schemes cannot be executed single-handedly, Ali sets out to cement a team who can help him. There is Gul, Ali's assistant and cameraman who doesn't seem to have an ambitious bone in his body. But he supports Ali unhesitatingly. Gul manages to evoke a laugh merely on the basis of his body language and expressions.

There's Zoya (Sugandha Singh) a veteran make-up artist who dreams of turning entrepreneur. Qureshi is a radio jockey who hates America and all things American. But his thought processes are rather random and not derived from a consistent political ideology.

The opening scene in the film is one where a news caster stands at the edge of the runaway, making an announcement. A plane takes off and the newscaster wig flies off.

Even as you laugh and continue to laugh your way through the film, one realises the director was very clear in his intentions -- there is so much humour in our daily lives, let's take some of it onto the big screen. Like Laskar-e-Amreeka a shady immigration agency with Rajendra Sethi playing the dubious owner.

But Tere Bin Laden is not just a film about slapstick jokes and naughty humour. Through all the gags and jokes, one is forced to accept how willingly we compromise on our ideals and values to attain our cherished goals; how we persist in giving personal gain more importance than building a cohesive society. There are some constant digs at America and their imperialist policies but the one-liners are sharp and cleverly woven into the script.

Theatre guru Barry John -- playing the devious, manipulative American officer -- and Praduman Singh -- as Osama Bin Laden -- make a perfect cast.

The dialect is authentic, with a peculiar mix of Punjabi and Hindi, liberally sprinkled with a lot of cuss words and swearing. Noora, the fake Osama with his chicken obsession, really sounds like a farmer who has been born and brought up in rural Pakistan.

There is no attempt to cater to the NRIs, and a sub-titled TBL will probably fall flat on its face simply because thedesi humour will be lost in translation.

If the film suffers it is mainly because of the budgetary constraints. Most of the film is restricted to the interiors as it probably wasn't possible to shoot the film in Pakistan. With better sets and a wider variety of locations, the film would have been a masterpiece.

Tere Bin Laden is definitely a must-watch.

Ratings: 3.5/5

Source: Rediff

Salty Adventures

A man walks into a building and tells security that he is a Russian spy... sounds like the beginning of a joke doesn't it?

Angelina Jolie and the rest of the people responsible for the movie Salt will be hoping that millions of people take the movie seriously enough to buy tickets and go watch what I imagine Team Jolie is hoping will become a major action franchise.

Towards that end, the multi-wigged mother of six (in real life, not in the movie) plays a run-and-gun secret agent who attempts to elude various law enforcement agencies after a Russian spy names her as the sleeper agent who will kill the visiting Russian President on US soil.

Really that is all the plot information you need to decide whether you want to watch this film or not. Because what this movie really is is an exercise in proving that anything Jason Bourne can do, Evelyn Salt can do better.

So decked out in a series of questionable hair pieces -- that includes a bizarre Michael Jackson (circa his Lisa Marie Presley wedding) hairdo -- the central character goes on the run while trying to prove that she is being framed.

In the early parts of this movie one is tempted to worry that the painfully thin-looking leading lady's bones might actually break upon impact during one of the many chases she endures and survives.

When things start getting progressively hairier though, one begins to wonder how much more damage a feral character like herself might have inflicted if she had any more meat on her bones.

Make no mistake; Evelyn Salt is one cold-blooded badass. She leaps off high structures onto moving vehicles, indulges in petty theft, sleight-of-hand subterfuge, punches the living hell out of men easily twice her size and fires all manner of weapons as if she really knows how to handle them. You wouldn't want to meet a woman like this in a cold dark alley.

The action is definitely more kinetic and conducive to suspending disbelief than the atrocities committed in Knight and Day.

Though one is tempted to think that Ms. Jolie's days of looking her best are well past, there is no denying that she is one of the very few working actresses (Milla Jovovich is another) who can essay a role like this and not make it seem ridiculous.

If you're in the mood for an action spectacle that rarely ever lets up and is very content to blow up, kick down or punch out every thing that stands in its way, Salt might be an amusing little diversion for you.

For the rest, I suppose there is always another attempt at making sense of Inception.

Ratings: 2.5/5