I did not know the meaning or significance of the word 'Aamir' until recently when a police officer probing into the Jaipur blasts told me that Aamir means leader, commander or chieftain in Arabic. He was explaining the rank of one of the alleged masterminds of the Pink City serial blasts in the SIMI heirarchy. The Muslim fanatic in the movie 'Aamir' also explains this to the protagonist Aamir Ali (Rajeev Khandelwal) in this flick.
Aamir is an NRI muslim doctor who gets entangled in a web of terror and is forced to end up as an unwilling Mujahideen, all in a matter of few hours after he sets his foot on Indian soil. The sense of alienation for Aamir starts slowly with the airport official insisting on multiple frisking of his baggage just because his name is 'Aamir' and not 'Amar'. It then starts to well up inside him as he finds his family missing at the arrival bay to welcome him. Within seconds his baggage is stolen and a mobile phone is hurled at him by two youth on a motorbike. The phone rings and his ordeal begins.
The man at the other end is one of the usual suspects, a muslim fanatic whose day begins and ends with jihad. He wants to get back at the majority community for the oppression and wrongs done to his 'quam'. He is not pretty much impressed with Aamir who according to him has strayed out of his community for various reasons including the fact that he is in love with a Hindu girl. Anyways he continue to bark instructions to Aamir through the phone and pushes him into the muslim dominated labrynth of Mumbai which is rarely shown in Hindi movies. He has also kidnapped his family members to ensure that Aamir does exactly what is being told to do. Surprisingly not even at a single point in the movie Aamir tries to contact anyone for help inspite of having a loaded wallet and a cell phone with him. Soon Aamir is handed a red briefcase with a ticking bomb which he is supposed to plant inside a BEST bus (remember the Ghatkopar bus blast?). I dont know if all terrorists work in this fashion because it might be possible for someone to miss Hritik Roshan in a big ass crowd but not this blood red briefcase.
This is the basic premise of the movie and the makers have delivered in churning out an interesting package. But a closer look reveals the disturbing undercurrents. The protagonist for instance is an educated Muslim youth, a doctor ( brings back memories of the recent ordeal of a Bangalore based Muslim doctor). He is civilised, comfortably rich and wears normal attire ( ie his scalp does not reveal his faith in the crowd) and he is in love with a Hindu girl. So he does not fit into the mould of a typical muslim that has been cultivated by the media in our mindsets. And so the endline it seems is that he has to be saved since he is no longer a part of his community, according to us. Well, his faith in Allah might be unwavering but we have been constantly told to not worry about Allah,the most benificient and the most merciful. For most of us Khuda is one of those Urdu words sprinkled on Bollywood songs to sweeten it. He has no role whatsoever to play when we sit down and define his children as per our whims, prejudice and even mere fancy.
Anyways, take a look at the rest of the muslim characters in the film. Almost all of them are in connivance with the fanatic who wants to blow up the bus and kill innocent people. As he commands Aamir through the Muslim localities of Mumbai everyone seems to know about the terror plan and seems to be silently wishing that the terror strike turns out to be a success. Their silence and hostile glances seems to indicate exactly this. The camera even hovers over the lunch table of the villian who is shown feasting on Kebab, Ghosth and those delicacies which we have relished in the muslim mohallas of our city. A sickening sequence to a carnivore like myself ( Iam a Hindu but I eat everything that doesnt bite back). Iam pretty sure he was having a tasty meal but the scene definitely left a bad taste in me.
The only one to help Aamir to some extent turns out to be a prostitute ( the filmy whore with the golden heart?? definitely not, may be the director thought that she could not be casted as one of the 72 virgins in a fanatic's Jannat). Also the only sequence in which Aamir seems to be in the midst of non muslims is the climax sequence when he gets onto the bus to plant the bomb, the potential victims of an Islamic fundamentalist. Ofcourse the director did not forget to prescribe his secular pill. I spotted one 'topiwala' among the passengers. Finally Aamir backs out and blows himself to bits.
Cinematographer Alphonse Roy has done a brilliant job. He has captured the crowd, the unexplored localities of Mumbai and has also managed to accentuate the tension and anxiety of Aamir by brilliantly spunging it with the gritty backdrop of the movie. His camera is the hero of the film. Ranjeev Khandelwal as Aamir does a good job but then to be honest, the character is one of those which is safe in the hands of even an average actor. So we will have to wait for his next film to rate his histrionics ( I don't watch TV serials. So I have no clue about his acting skills). Director Raj Kumar Gupta shows promise as a film maker in his debut film but again his mettle as a director will be fully revealed only in his next venture. Some reviewers have said that the storyline is quite similar to a Filipino film but I have not seen it. But then a 'running man' story is very rarely narrated in Bollywood. As far as the cell phone thriller syndrome is concerned, Vikram Bhatt already managed to lay his hands on a DVD of the Kim Basinger starrer 'Cellular' and bastardised it without wasting time.
Personally I try to find something good even in the bad movies that I watch. But the convoluted propaganda hidden inside Aamir, ie the amount of hostility that have been projected on common Muslims who are not even directly connected with the terror plot left me very disturbed.Blame it on the times we live in. Just try reading beyond the newspaper lines and breaking news flash straps on television news channels. You will get the point.
B .
Aamir is an NRI muslim doctor who gets entangled in a web of terror and is forced to end up as an unwilling Mujahideen, all in a matter of few hours after he sets his foot on Indian soil. The sense of alienation for Aamir starts slowly with the airport official insisting on multiple frisking of his baggage just because his name is 'Aamir' and not 'Amar'. It then starts to well up inside him as he finds his family missing at the arrival bay to welcome him. Within seconds his baggage is stolen and a mobile phone is hurled at him by two youth on a motorbike. The phone rings and his ordeal begins.
The man at the other end is one of the usual suspects, a muslim fanatic whose day begins and ends with jihad. He wants to get back at the majority community for the oppression and wrongs done to his 'quam'. He is not pretty much impressed with Aamir who according to him has strayed out of his community for various reasons including the fact that he is in love with a Hindu girl. Anyways he continue to bark instructions to Aamir through the phone and pushes him into the muslim dominated labrynth of Mumbai which is rarely shown in Hindi movies. He has also kidnapped his family members to ensure that Aamir does exactly what is being told to do. Surprisingly not even at a single point in the movie Aamir tries to contact anyone for help inspite of having a loaded wallet and a cell phone with him. Soon Aamir is handed a red briefcase with a ticking bomb which he is supposed to plant inside a BEST bus (remember the Ghatkopar bus blast?). I dont know if all terrorists work in this fashion because it might be possible for someone to miss Hritik Roshan in a big ass crowd but not this blood red briefcase.
This is the basic premise of the movie and the makers have delivered in churning out an interesting package. But a closer look reveals the disturbing undercurrents. The protagonist for instance is an educated Muslim youth, a doctor ( brings back memories of the recent ordeal of a Bangalore based Muslim doctor). He is civilised, comfortably rich and wears normal attire ( ie his scalp does not reveal his faith in the crowd) and he is in love with a Hindu girl. So he does not fit into the mould of a typical muslim that has been cultivated by the media in our mindsets. And so the endline it seems is that he has to be saved since he is no longer a part of his community, according to us. Well, his faith in Allah might be unwavering but we have been constantly told to not worry about Allah,the most benificient and the most merciful. For most of us Khuda is one of those Urdu words sprinkled on Bollywood songs to sweeten it. He has no role whatsoever to play when we sit down and define his children as per our whims, prejudice and even mere fancy.
Anyways, take a look at the rest of the muslim characters in the film. Almost all of them are in connivance with the fanatic who wants to blow up the bus and kill innocent people. As he commands Aamir through the Muslim localities of Mumbai everyone seems to know about the terror plan and seems to be silently wishing that the terror strike turns out to be a success. Their silence and hostile glances seems to indicate exactly this. The camera even hovers over the lunch table of the villian who is shown feasting on Kebab, Ghosth and those delicacies which we have relished in the muslim mohallas of our city. A sickening sequence to a carnivore like myself ( Iam a Hindu but I eat everything that doesnt bite back). Iam pretty sure he was having a tasty meal but the scene definitely left a bad taste in me.
The only one to help Aamir to some extent turns out to be a prostitute ( the filmy whore with the golden heart?? definitely not, may be the director thought that she could not be casted as one of the 72 virgins in a fanatic's Jannat). Also the only sequence in which Aamir seems to be in the midst of non muslims is the climax sequence when he gets onto the bus to plant the bomb, the potential victims of an Islamic fundamentalist. Ofcourse the director did not forget to prescribe his secular pill. I spotted one 'topiwala' among the passengers. Finally Aamir backs out and blows himself to bits.
Cinematographer Alphonse Roy has done a brilliant job. He has captured the crowd, the unexplored localities of Mumbai and has also managed to accentuate the tension and anxiety of Aamir by brilliantly spunging it with the gritty backdrop of the movie. His camera is the hero of the film. Ranjeev Khandelwal as Aamir does a good job but then to be honest, the character is one of those which is safe in the hands of even an average actor. So we will have to wait for his next film to rate his histrionics ( I don't watch TV serials. So I have no clue about his acting skills). Director Raj Kumar Gupta shows promise as a film maker in his debut film but again his mettle as a director will be fully revealed only in his next venture. Some reviewers have said that the storyline is quite similar to a Filipino film but I have not seen it. But then a 'running man' story is very rarely narrated in Bollywood. As far as the cell phone thriller syndrome is concerned, Vikram Bhatt already managed to lay his hands on a DVD of the Kim Basinger starrer 'Cellular' and bastardised it without wasting time.
Personally I try to find something good even in the bad movies that I watch. But the convoluted propaganda hidden inside Aamir, ie the amount of hostility that have been projected on common Muslims who are not even directly connected with the terror plot left me very disturbed.Blame it on the times we live in. Just try reading beyond the newspaper lines and breaking news flash straps on television news channels. You will get the point.
B .
