Black Friday Hindi Movie
Director Anurag Kashyap must be have felt sick and tired of playing the waiting game, what with most of his films failing to make it to the theatres. A sense of deja vu must have been felt, when he realized that Black Friday too would not be released, thanks to a court order. But now that the order has been lifted, and the film has released, he must have heaved such a huge sigh of relief that the whole of Mumbai city must have heard it.
And the release of his film Black Friday is a tremendous boon, and a treat, for the true lovers of cinema, as well as for those who want to know the truth behind the serial bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai city on March 12 1999. The verdict is now out, and everyone more or less knows the basic story, but to put it in the format of a film, that too a long one (17 reels), and to hold the viewer attention throughout, is no mean task, something which the director has done with consummate ease. The film is based on a book of the same name, written by a Mid-day reporter, S. Hussain Zaidi.
The film starts off, predictably, with the blasts themselves, starting with the one that occurred at the Bombay Stock Exchange, followed by others at the passport office in Worli, Air India building, Dadar, and certain hotels in the Western suburbs of the city. Even as the casualties mount, and body parts of the victims are strewn on the road, the police with the help of the bomb squad swing into action, to come to some conclusion. The case is under the change of DCP Rakesh Maria (played to perfection by Kay Kay Menon), who leads a team of dedicated officers. The first clue that is unearthed by the police, is an unexploded van left on the road by the criminals, which failed to blast. From the papers found in the van, the police zero in on Tiger Memon (Pavan Malhotra), and his family, only to find that the entire clan has left Bombay for Dubai, a day before the blasts. Further investigations lead the police to Memon's manager, who is arrested, interrogated, and slowly spills the beans. Subsequent arrests, interrogations, threats, and cajoling lead to the unraveling of the master conspiracy, to destabilize Bombay.
A hotheaded Tiger Memon hatched the entire plan. The origin of the issue is the demotion of the Babri Masjid by Hindu militant forces in Ayodhya, which was followed by riots in almost all parts of the country, but especially in Mumbai. Thousands of Muslims were injured or killed, and their properties destroyed. Tiger was one such victim. Tiger, who was already into silver smuggling and 'havala' rackets, effectively used his contacts in Dubai and in Pakistan, to collect, motivate and train a group of misdirected Muslim youth, and inspired them to place the bombs in the designated places, assuring them that what they were doing was a holy war (jihad). With Tiger in Dubai, and funds running out, most of the perpetrators, who initially fled Mumbai after the blast, return and get caught, thanks to a network of police informers. One such perpetrator Badshah Khan (Aditya Shrivastava), gets thoroughly disillusioned, runs from pillar to post, turns short or money, and eventually gets arrested. He turns state witness, and throws light on the complete conspiracy.
The film is long, but holds viewer attention throughout. At places, one wishes that the editor had been more alert, like the chase sequence to catch one of the criminals, which drags on and on. Also, the juxtaposition of the various stories and sequences are sometimes confusing, but overall the film has an excellent screenplay and a rounded script, connecting all the loose ends. The only thing that one wonders, is whether the story is the whole truth, or truth as seen through the eyes of the police authorities.
Of the cast, Kay Kay Menon is very good, as DCP Rakesh Maria, blowing hot and cold, fighting the enemies as well as the demons in his mind, and striking terror into the hearts of the criminals. And using logic and persuasion, when the sit
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