Lamhaa depicts many issues that plagues Kashmir but doesn’t delve into any. It just gives a cursory glance. The subplots rush you through a village of half-widows waiting for their husbands, who were taken by the police a decade ago; army officials selling their souls to the enemies of the country and violating human rights; kids losing their innocence and lending voice to the anti-india jihad; the plight of the meagerly paid soldiers as they defend the country risking their lives; politicians churning political and financial profit from the whole scenario, girls being pushed to prostitution, religious leaders working in tandem with ISI and brainwashing the locals; and so on and so forth. If the anti-India sentiment of the people in the valley comes as a rude shock, the young leaders attempting for a better future for Kashmir fills one with hope.
However, what goes real wrong with the movie is the main plot. It turns out a bit too flimsy and Bollywood has seen far better variations of it.
Indian intelligence gets information that a big terror attack on Kashmir is being planned by the militants and Vikram(Sanjay Dutt) is sent on an undercover mission to thwart it. The self proclaimed ‘Messiah’ Dutt reaches the Valley and on the very day becomes the witness of a suicide attack on one of the most influential separatist leaders Haji (Anupam Kher) who is apparently fighting for an ‘Azaad Kashmir’ for decades. Haji is saved but another leader gets killed. Vikram then meets one of Haji’s protégé the firebrand Aziza (Bipasha Basu) along with her woman brigade helps her mentor in his mission. On the other hand there is Aatif (Kunal Kapoor), another protégé of Haji and now a reformed militant, who want to replace bullets with ballots. As the story progress Aziza gets disillusioned with the radical ideals of Haji and joins Aatif. Vikram with the help of Aziza and Atif tries to gather information about the ‘big plan’ and eventually foils it.
All through the film the audience is told that ‘something big is going to happen’ and that thing happens to be a mere bombing at a rally and that too involving just three kids as human bombs who never even get a chance to get into the crowd. The sequence where Bipasha is attacked by the women workers of Anupam Kher’s political party is undoubtedly one of the best scenes and is bound to remind one of the famous scene from Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malena. Bipasha tries hard to do a Monica Bellucci but her outburst is hardly as convincing. And the scene where Sanjay Dutt finds the body of a dead kid stuffed with time bomb on a operating table is a replica of a scene from this year’s multiple oscar winning movie ‘The Hurt Locker’ by Kathryn Bigelow.
As for the acting, Anupam Kher is brilliant. Sanjay Dutt looks exactly the same as he does in all his films; the same swagger, the same sunglasses, and probably the same keffiyeh (else he might have bought those in dozens). As for his acting, it is no Vaastav or even Mission Kashmir. Bipasha fits the character like a glove and delivers her best performance till date. Kunal Kapoor looks and talks like a true Kashmiri but fails miserably when it comes to acting out emotions. He delivers some very emotional speeches sans any emotion. He looks more plastic in the political rallies and speeches than Katrina did in Rajneeti. (It is high time he figures out what to do with his hands while delivering a dialogue. Try the oldest trick. Put them in your pocket). Mahesh Manjrekar is wasted. Shernaz Patel does a good job in her bit role. And the rest don’t have much of acting to do.
All the song are brilliant in their own right but would better be done away with as they act as speed breakers and serves little or no purpose otherwise. Shot on location, DoP James Fowlds’ camera captures the breathtaking beauty of the Valley on celluloid. But although the shaky camera works well for certain scenes of conflict and gives them a realistic touch, the same technique is used all through irrespective of the demand of the scenes making it look stiff and artificial at times. The script by Raghav Dhar and Rahul Dholakia disappoints. It is disjointed in places, a bit too rushed on others- giving the audience a hard time to comprehend. Also, many characters are not established properly. We never get to know why Sanjay Dutt’s character is handpicked for this mission and as he keeps mentioning that he is back in the valley after more than a decade, one tends to expect his relation with Kashmir would be provided at some stage. But that never happens. Mahesh Manjrekar as Peer Baba is abrupt and doesn’t explain why he changed sides and how he knows Dutt. And last but not the least, why Sanjay Dutt’s character assigns himself as the personal bodyguard to Bipasha.
But the biggest let down is Rahul Dholakia himself. The Perzania director tries to blend realistic cinema with Bollywood and fails miserably. Lamhaa is supposed to tell you the ‘The untold story of Kashmir’ but maybe the director has just opened his eyes to the Kashmir issue a bit too late and that too with the notion that he has actually discovered something new. But, even though the issues are all too well known, maybe if the director would have stuck to the docu-drama format it could have been made into one of the better films on Kashmir.
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