Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Shoot On Sight: Naseerudin Shah, Om Puri, Brian Cox, Greta Scacchi, Gulshan Grover; director: Jagmohan Mundhra
Jag Mundhra8217;s films have topical, relevant subjects. That8217;s the good part. The bad part is that they do not possess a single subtle note.
Everything is heavily underscored, leaving no place for understatement or nuance.
And that8217;s something one misses sorely, especially in a film like his latest film.
Shoot On Sight8217; 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 Sight8217; yield answers which, for all their truth, seem like they are stating the obvious.
It8217;s not as if Naseer, as Commander Ali of Scotland Yard, doesn8217;t know the pitfalls of playing a Muslim cop in a still-White country.
In his scenes with gori8217; wife Greta, defiant daughter, couple of openly racist colleagues, and sympathetic boss Brian, he shows as much deftness as the script allows. But that8217;s not much at all.
Ali8217;s childhood friend from Lahore, now a mullah8217; advocating jehad Om is all surface8212;he strokes his beard, recites from the Koran, and colours impressionable minds.
More predictabilities abound. Rebellious Muslim teenager facing off dad8212;he won8217;t let her date white boys who want to go all the way. Jolly meat-shop owner doling out gosht8217; and good cheer. Good white wife trying to balance the tensions in her family, and his.
We8217;ve seen all this before, with much more depth : there8217;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.
