DOWN THE TERROR TRAIL

Although astutely crafted and brilliantly mounted, the lm lacks soul.

Based on real life events, Omerta is the biography of Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British citizen of Pakistani descent, who had links to various Islamist militant organisations and was responsible for several terrorist activities in India and Pakistan.

The lm exposes state-sponsored terrorism and how it manipulates young minds into believing a sordid interpretation of struggle or ght against the enemies of one’s religion. This is not a lm about the rightness or wrongness of Omar’s cause or the political situation that inspired it. It simply documents his cold-blooded journey.

In the process, the lm inadvertently glori es terrorism. Sans any entertainment, there are bloodcurdling moments that make you feel repulsed – right from the kidnapping of foreign tourists in Delhi to the scenes that involve the annihilation of the Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan.

Narrated in a non-linear manner, the lm is taut and engaging during the rst act. The second act loses it sheen due to the poor editing that causes the confusion between place and period. And the third act with the inclusion of many news-media stock-footages, seems a tad tacky and a rushed job to wrap this non-conclusive narrative.

Rajkummar Rao delivers a brilliant performance as the emotionally inclined but brutally barbarous, “intelligent and well-educated member of the holy war. Timothy Ryan Hickernell who has a striking resemblance to Daniel Pearl offers an earnest portrayal. Keval Arora falls in love with Dev, but Dev’s heart is all Paro’s.

Needless to say, the actual lm comes as a shock, for the off-kilter romance though meticulously constructed, is set in a convoluted plot where the centre-stage is retrograde politics. The romance is lost in the political maze. Also, the story seems to be set in some bygone era, for today’s rural India is not like how it is portrayed here. The characterisation too, seems forced and fabricated.

Also, the direction in some scenes appears amateurishly mounted. Case in point is witnessed when, Paro after being shot, lands in the driveway of the hospital wounded. There is no reaction from her co-actors.

On the performance front, Rahul Bhat offers a fairly decent portrayal of Dev but you fail to empathise with him, simply because of his poorly chalked out character graph and his equally weak onscreen chemistry with both the leading ladies. His performance uctuates from forceful to hamming, at regular intervals.

Richa Chadda as Paro, is equally lacklustre. Adding no nuances to her character, she walks through her role unenthusiastically. As Chandni, Aditi Rao Hydari does offer a bit of intrigue to her character, but her poorly etched role does not help her make the part memorable.

While the lm boasts of decent production values, overall it fails to engross you.

Troy Ribeiro

as Saeed Sheikh - Omar’s helpless and lost father is sincere.

The title Omerta which in Italian means a code of silence about criminal activity and a refusal to give evidence to the police, refers to the attitude of ordinary people who look the other way and don’t bring the criminals to book. It denotes the motivating factor of Omar’s strife.

However, at the end as you leave the theatre, you are bound to question the motive of this lm and its worth.

Troy Ribeiro