The Diplomat movie review: John Abraham overcomes limited acting range with arresting choices

Abraham may have limited emoting range but his choice of projects, especially when he wades into tricky territories of espionage and terrorism, have been noteworthy, and the sincerity with which he goes at those choices, is even more so. To choose to unpack the ordeal of a woman who is, yes, Indian, but also Muslim– the ‘but’ a sad reality in these polarised times–takes a special kind of courage, but Abraham’s mustachioed, phlegmatic diplomat stays staunch, and you can see the actor leaning into the character.

The Diplomat movie trailer:

It would have been tempting to drown this film in bigotry. But the Pakistan-bashing—of course there is some– stays low-key, the characters who play the vicious tribals amongst whom Uzma is trapped balanced by those who are able to see reason. Singh’s Pakistani counterpart (Ashwath Bhatt, leaving a mark) whipping up a ‘Gadar’-style chase after the cavalcade carrying Uzma towards safety seems to be the kind of stock filmi guy whom we can all hate on, his ugly hectoring of Uzma being another thing he does well. To give us relief, there’s Kumud Mishra playing a twinkly-eyed lawyer, and a stern judge who ultimately bends towards justice.

But Abraham is no hand-pump-yanking-yelling-shouting character. His Singh is shown being calm even in the most difficult circumstances, and in a couple of places, manages to land a couple of the kind of wry humorous lines that Sharib Hashmi, playing his ear-to-the-ground embassy colleague, is much more capable of.

Sadia Khateeb does an excellent job, revealing the extent of Uzma’s pain and terror, leading the latter to take the extreme step which threatens to turn into a full-fledged diplomatic/political row between the two countries. As Uzma’s uber-violent ‘shauhar’, Jagjeet Sandhu (‘Mehsampur’, ‘Leila’) is so believable that he makes you flinch. Revathy, playing the real-life Sushma Swaraj, the Foreign Minister at the time, is terrific as usual. And there’s enough tension, despite the occasional chest-thumping and the flag-waving and the basic story-telling, to keep us with the film.

The Diplomat movie cast: John Abraham, Sadia Khateeb, Jagjeet Sandhu, Kumud Mishra, Sharib Hashmi, Ashwath Bhatt, Revathy
The Diplomat movie director: Shivam Nair
The Diplomat movie rating: Two and a half stars