The Award winning team of the film "Vicky Donor" comes with a Big Bang with its director Shoojit Sircar coming into the same territory of terrorism in which he reveled in his 2005 debut venture "Yahaan", this time with a issue of Lankan terrorism which has been hardly touched earlier (Mani Ratnam / Kannathil Mutthamittal/ Tamil (2001) and Santosh Sivan/ The Terrorist/ Tamil (1997)), having shades of films like "Saving Private Ryan", "Kuruthipunal" (Tamil), "The Terrorist" and "Kannathil Mutthamittal". The striking feature of this film is that it doesnt leaves room for melodrama and grips you well with it's killer suspense. The film sympathizes with the Military, the Militants and even the innocent people who are caught between this strife of the establishment(s). The film's bonus points lies in its well layered screenplay (Somnath Dey and Shubendu Bhattacharya) which brilliantly shows the events , the conspiracy and corruption behind the growth of the LTTE and assassination of Rajeev Gandhi and it's editing (Chandrashekhar Prajapati) which is very slick and makes the film gripping in it's crucial moments. The cinematography by Kamaljeet Negi is simply brilliant and some of his shots like the battle scenes , the warfare and investigation scenes are indeed great. Sound Design work by Bishwadeep Chatterjee well intensifies the situations in the film and the production design work by Vinod Kumar and team deserves applause for recreating the mood of the terrorism and politics, which brings back the Mani Ratnam charm on screen and Music Score is great indeed. Siddhartha Basu as the RAW chief is riveting and great, Ajay Ratnam as the LTTE chief is chilly and brilliant, Nargis Fakhiri doesnt disappoints this time with her sensitive portrayal of a War Journalist. The supporting cast, including the LTTE terrorists are brilliant. John Abraham, carries the film brilliantly on his shoulders and this time he strikes hard as an actor with his spellbound performance and as a producer for producing this hardly touched issue based film. Overall, a Sensible Striking and Slick Stuff meant for a must watch.
My rating would be 4/ 5 .
Review By - Yash Mishara