There is only one explanation for
Phantom: the cast and crew
of the film really wanted a paid holiday. This in itself is not an
objectionable aspiration. Who doesn't want to be able to bounce around
London, Beirut, Chicago and other beautiful parts of the world, and get
paid to do so? However, when the cost of that bouncing around is
approximately Rs 55 crores and those who foot that bill expect the
movie-going public to recover that amount as box office collection,
things may get a little more complicated.
As an idea,
Phantom
crackles with possibility. Humiliated and furious after the terrorist
attacks on Mumbai in 2008, India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)
decides to send an operative on a covert mission to teach those who
plotted against India a lesson. He is a man who goes unnoticed in crowds
and who has evaded Google's all-seeing eye. He doesn't care if his
target has a human side or redeeming qualities — if you had any part to
play in the Mumbai attacks, the phantom wants you dead.
In your
head, you now see a desi super spy with Daniel Craig's cool menace, Tom
Cruise's stunt-worthiness, Jason Statham's punches. What you get in
Phantom is Saif Ali Khan.
A still from Phantom.
As
court-martialled soldier Daniyal, Khan takes the idea of a game face to
a whole new level. For all of 147 minutes, he sports precisely one
expression, give or take some make up and facial hair. He doesn't move
as much as lumber, he is thoroughly indiscreet and everywhere he goes,
he sticks out like a sore thumb. If this was because of his good looks,
we'd forgive it. But Khan spends the entire film looking both awkward
and impassive, as though he's got a hangover and is doing his best to
block out the headache.
One can't help but feel that there was hope and a prayer governing the decision to name Katrina Kaif's character Nawaz in
Phantom.
Sadly, those prayers were not answered. Almost sharing a name with
Nawazuddin Siddiqui doesn't ensure the transference of his acting
ability. Compared to Khan's one expression, Kaif has none. Whether she's
crying over lives lost or reminiscing about having tea at the Taj Mahal
Hotel, there's not a hint of emotion to mar her perfect complexion and
gorgeous features.
Smartly, director Kabir Khan decides to not
rely upon his lead pair's charisma and acting skills to woo the
audience. Instead, he takes the audience globe trotting. We begin in
Mumbai, move on to Kashmir, London, Chicago, Beirut, a
recreated-in-Lebanon Syria and finally land up in Pakistan. In each
place, people are killed and Daniyal wrinkles his brow, possibly because
he's trying to figure out how much of his beard he should trim since
his facial hair changes as much as the landscape in Phantom.
When a
film rests upon Khan and Kaif to hold the audience's attention, the
action better be explosive and the plot, tightly-wound. The stunts
aren't bad in
Phantom, but they're not memorable. Still, the
sounds of explosions and bullets will at least keep you awake. For the
plot, there is only one word: woeful.
Phantom could have been a
clever film. It borrows heavily from very dramatic, real incidents that
are begging to be fictionalised. Only here, the characters are badly
drawn, the dialogues are clumsy, the transitions are jumpy and the
politics are horribly simplified — it's as though the screenplay was
written overnight. The film quickly starts feeling predictable and the
strategies to kill the terrorists are not particularly gripping. It
doesn't help that one of the plans requires us to watch (and hear)
Daniyal doing potty.
But well before art imitates life, you have
to wonder about RAW's judgement when we see Daniyal in action the first
time around. With Nawaz, Daniyal is first supposed to identify a
Lashkar-e-Taiba operative in a packed stadium and then, they're to
discreetly follow the suspect around London. Daniyal and Nawaz's
behaviour is so shifty and obviously suspicious — Daniyal's
midlife-crisis-signalling leather jacket really doesn't help — that it's
a wonder they weren't snapped up for questioning by the British
security service.
Not only can he not blend in, Daniyal lets Nawaz
(a civilian under contract with RAW) know he's going around killing
Lashkar operatives. This is not necessarily the best way to keep a
top-secret plot, secret. Nawaz then proceeds to get deeply involved in
Daniyal's mission to avenge India. Why? Because her daddy used to take
her to have tea and chocolate pastry at the Taj when she was a kid. If
it's the dessert-flavoured memory that's fuelling her, it's a good thing
Nawaz hasn't been back to Bombay and tasted Le 15's chocolate and
salted caramel tart.
Kabir Khan also tries the standard trick of
casting good actors in key supporting roles, but Sabyasachi Chakrabarty,
Rajesh Tailang and Zeeshan Ayyub are all wasted on characters that have
been badly written. Ayyub, for instance, plays Samit Mishra, a chap who
appears in the RAW director's office out of nowhere. We mean this
literally. His introductory scene literally has him materialise in the
middle of a meeting, on the couch in the RAW director's office, as
though he's been beamed in place by Starship Enterprise. Most
tragically, he doesn't even get to have chai with Nawaz despite having
ventured into enemy waters to save her life.
Things finally turn a
little tense in the second half of the film, when Daniyal is in
Pakistan and the ISI start closing their net around him. There are a few
close calls and at one point, it seems like Daniyal just might get
caught after all. Unfortunately, since Daniyal might be the most bland
and uncharismatic hero we've seen on screen in years, no one cares if he
lives or dies. The man spends 147 minutes killing bad guys — Pakistani
bad guys, no less — and the only moment when he drew cheers from the
crowd was when he told a baddie called Haaris Saeed that India wants "
insaf".
In
case you haven't guessed, Haaris Saeed is the stand-in name for Hafiz
Saeed. Evidently, his name was changed to Haaris at the last moment
since when speaking of him, all the characters' lips say "Hafiz" but
voices say "Haaris". Sajid Mir, the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, doesn't
enjoy that privilege. Even the photo that we're shown of him is quite
similar to the photos of Mir that are in circulation.
Considering how
Phantom
cheerfully borrows from real life and makes no bones about ISI being in
cahoots with Lashkar-e-Taiba, it isn't surprising that the film isn't
being shown in Pakistan. However, considering just how much of a bore
Phantom is, for once the Pakistani courts may just have done our neighbours a favour.
Source:http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/phantom-review-saif-ali-khan-katrina-kaif-are-as-boring-as-the-film-2410136.html
