Vision Impossible !

The hero, bloodied and fatigued, is tied to a rope with his hands above his head. The treacherous Pakistani jehadi-general tells his underling “Cut him up” and leaves the scene. The muscleman brings out a chainsaw (yes a chainsaw..ala Leatherface) with the aim of “cutting the hero up”. He swings wildly unable to cope with the recoil of the motor and cuts through the rope which ties the hero ! And the hero proceeds to send him to his maker.

That in a nutshell is “Asambhav”–an unintentional comedy which was made as an action flick. Its pedigree was excellent. With one of my favorite Bollywood directors Rajiv Rai at the helm I was expecting a Mohra or Gupt. Clean low-brow fun, edge of the seat action, some item numbers—-and what did I get: a damned comedy !

The plot err….the President of India along with his fetching daughter have been kidnapped by “international terrorists” the leader of who looks as menacing as a pickpocket on a local train. He does have a “boom” shell girlfriend though….Boom Boom Anupama Verma in a role as miniscule as her shorts. These “terrorists” plan to sell the President off for a measly 50 million dollars (yes 50 million !) to a very constipated Afghan jihadi (Mukesh Rishi) who is badly in the need of a laxative. And who keeps on saying Oye…[A Tarantino-style tribute to Tridev possibly]. He is being paid off by a Pakistani general [Milind Gunaji] who has as his sidekick an assasin who looks like Shahid Afridi. In the mix come in drug smugglers Tom Alter and Naseeruddin Shah [who seems to need the money more than the terrorists….else what is an actor of his capacity doing in this mess]. Then there is sleazy talent agent Arif Zakaria who rolls the word “Alishaaaaaaa” off his tongue with the same gusto as Anu Malik did when he made a pass at Babydoll Alisha Chinoi.

Talent Agent? Talent in this movie? Oh yes. There is the heroine Priyanka Chopra for whom this role is tailor-made to exhibit her acting repertoire. Which consists of some pelvic thrusts and heaves. Not that I am complaining !

Then there is the embassy staff……consisting of a poet who represents the all-around depravity of the movie, a voluptous vixen suggestively named “Brar”, and an ambassador who is having more fun that he should legally be allowed to have. Did we forget anyone? Oh yes….the hero…..Captain Arya [Arjun Rampal] who does calisthenics bare-torsoed and who kicks bigtime butt [no I dont mean Priyanka Chopra’s] with a deadpan expression. He is on mission impossible…to rescue the president before the audience dies of laughter.

The camerawork tries to be on the edge….with splitscreens and blurred motion but like everything else in the movie its overdone. But thats the only positive (if one can call it that) in the entire movie. The dialogues are about as fresh as last week’s leftovers and about as original as Bappi Lahiri. The level of acting is straight out of a school play and the action sequences hohum. I liked the music of course and thats the only reason I sat through this muck. The director tries to make the movie “heavy” by throwing in references to Al Jazeera, Masood, Daniel Pearl ……but when you have a movie where a man rhymes “bisphot” [explosion] with “langot” [loin-cloth]….nothing can save it from the pits.

A point in passing. With Paki-bashing being the recurrent theme in this movie I couldnt help notice a subtle (yes I know the word “subtle” and Ashambhav dont go together at all) characterization which I can only call communal. All the evil Pakistani men speak in Urdu and the heroic Capt Arya (arya ?) speaks in true “suddh” [pure] Hindu (Sanskritized) Hindi without a trace of Urdu influence. Of course that makes his dialogues comical [it seems he is straight out of Mahabharata] and I was just waiting for him to say “Parantu Mitr” ! He does come close…..while bashing up a baddie he does call him a “dusht papi” or something like that……an educated urbane commando…….and all those Afghans can say in return is “Oye”

In all a total cop-out.