Shoot On Sight

Everything is heavily underscored, leaving no place for understatement or nuance.

And that’s something one misses sorely, especially in a film like his latest film.

`Shoot On Sight’ is based on the London bombings in 2005, which unleashed a whole spate of racial profiling. Is it a crime to be Muslim? Are all Muslims terrorists? These questions, asked by sundry characters in `Shoot On Sight’ yield answers which, for all their truth, seem like they are stating the obvious.

It’s not as if Naseer, as Commander Ali of Scotland Yard, doesn’t know the pitfalls of playing a Muslim cop in a still-White country.

In his scenes with `gori’ wife (Greta), defiant daughter, couple of openly racist colleagues, and sympathetic boss (Brian), he shows as much deftness as the script allows. But that’s not much at all.

Ali’s childhood friend from Lahore, now a `mullah’ advocating jehad ( Om ) is all surface—he strokes his beard, recites from the Koran, and colours impressionable minds.

More predictabilities abound. Rebellious Muslim teenager facing off dad—he won’t let her date white boys who want to go all the way. Jolly meat-shop owner doling out `gosht’ and good cheer. Good white wife trying to balance the tensions in her family, and his.

We’ve seen all this before, with much more depth : there’s more to multi-culturalism, and the problems of being brown, post 9/11, than these very broad, too familiar brush-strokes.

The Hindi dub flattens the film even more; catch the English version, if you have to.