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Shaurya

Movie Shaurya Director Samar Khan Producer Moser Baer Music Adnan Sami Cast Rahul Bose, Minissha Lamba, Kay Kay Menon, Seema Biswas

Sonia Chopra

Those who�ve been a fan of the Tom-Cruise-Demi Moore- Jack Nicholson starrer A Few Good Men will face crashing disappointment on seeing Shaurya. Yup, it�s a lift. Not only has director Samar Khan taken characters and plot inspirations from the film, he�s turned starrer A Few Good Men�s basic premise of the army�s secret Code Red into a communal issue here. I believe this is one of the rare cases you wish he had copied the film frame for frame. Shaurya begins with a murder where an army man Major Jaaved Khan (Deepak Dobriyal) kills his senior. Rahul Bose plays Tom Cruise�s gum-chewing, care-a-damn Major Siddhant Chaudhary who�s posted to Shrinagar to fight Khan�s case. Best buddy Major Aaksh Kapoor (Javed Jaffrey as serious type; not even a smile) is fighting the case on behalf of the army. He advices Siddhant to treat it like an open-and-shut case and just ask the accused to confess his crime. That�s what Siddhant heads out to do, but has a change of heart. Which is interesting. Because in the original film, the change of thought happens gradually, with solid reasoning, that transforms an irresponsible officer into one who wants to do the right thing. Here, you cannot understand why Major Siddhant wants to save Jaaved Khan in the first place; especially since the accused keeps confessing his crime. Minnisha Lamba is Kaavya Shastri (Preity Zinta from Lakshya anyone?) a journalist who becomes Siddhant�s partner in fighting for Khan. Several talks with her over beer, a two-minute meeting with Jaaved�s mother, and a jog on the rocky mountains later, Major Siddhant is a changed man. Next day, he arrives in the courtroom in one of those filmy shots where the actor walks very fast in his spiffy uniform, looking very grim and important, against a background of thundering music. Kay Kay Menon, plays Brigadier Pratap Singh, Jack Nicholson�s villain. Nicholson�s chilling intimidation is hard to portray, but Menon improvises and makes it into a less chilling, more stern-sort-of bad guy. Sill, Kay Kay�s performance is the only one that really moves you. And that of Seema Biswas, who plays Captain Jaaved�s mother and wipes photos on the wall for the most time. Even with her miniscule screen time, Biswas adds an air of dignity to the proceedings, proving that a powerhouse actor needs just a few minutes to make an impact. Bose is a great actor, but this is not his best performance. Dobriyal, an excellent actor as we saw in Omkara, is underutilised here, but does well in whatever scope is available. Amrita Rao in a special appearance is refreshing and her characterisation is very interesting as well. Technically, the film passes muster and the songs are fairly enjoyable. The final courtroom proceedings have none of the bite of the original. Here, the courtroom interrogation ranges from the offensive (the whole dialogue about how Brigadier Pratap�s family was killed and minor daughter raped by a smirking Major Siddhant) to the gimmicky. You are not moved, you don�t care for any of the characters enough to root for them, and the communal twinge added is not really handled in a sensitive manner. Before you know it, the court gives out its verdict and you are on your way out the door. Turns out that Jaaved Khan had murdered his senior for a humanitarian reason; a fact that he did not disclose to anyone and that Major Siddhant discovered. What�s commendable is that the film attempts to tackle two very, very serious subjects � that of communal tension and racial discrimination; and the other of barbaric acts by power-drunk army officials at remote postings. But one only wishes these issues were tackled in an original, inspired script rather than insinuating these topics in a lift. Surely, one is not wrong in expecting both originality and tackling of issues, if one must do the latter.