Shaurya

Hindi
Duration: 2.5hrs
Cast: Rahul Bose, Javed Jaffery, KK Menon, Minissha Lamba

The thought I went, shaking my head, away with was: WHY THE RIP? WHY DID THEY HAVE TO LIFT THE ENTIRE STORYLINE FROM Few Good Men? If the idea was to show religious bigotry in the army, a million others ways could have been devised, surely?

Anyway lift Samar Khan does (once again.. the first time being Kuch Meta Ho Gaye) but not completely.

Rahul Bose plays the very urbanised suave, Siddhanth, given the task of defending Captain Javed Khan. The stiff, with a rod-up-his- Javed is accused of killing his senior point blank. Javed Jaffery plays the play-by-the-book Akash aka AK prosecution. The two go way back, and much time is spent in establishing this. Sigh.

The first half of the movie is sure to tickle the multiplex audience, but post interval the movie falls flat. Samar is clearly not comfortable with directing high drama court scenes (except for the climax which had to be in the court). In fact there is this shot of Rahul walking down a corridor, black coolers and all, with various voice overs suggesting court scenes (Objection! I'd like to call on witness... so on so forth). That is the way Samar shows you that the court case is, in fact, progressing. It seems he rather spend the time going over 'relevant' scenes of Seema Biwas (defendant's mom) wiping photo frames blank-faced and Sid getting AK and his babe married off. WTF only.

KK is deliciously wicked. As Brigadier Pratap he is convincingly cool-blooded. His power house performance is probably what saves the day.

Javed Jaffery puts life into the chemistry between him and Rahul. His is a restrained performance that scores full points on my scale. But adds little to the movie over all.

Minisha is perfect for the part Samar casted her for. Roll eyes, and screech when required. Her is a role that could have been chopped off, but can it still be Bollywood without a love angle?

Rahul Bose, who never scores high on my scale, comes off better this time. Though his trademark eye-bulging still gets on my nerves :( His whole transformation as the man who is initially disinterested in the case and then gets involved very deep is not at all convincing. All that Samar does to show the change is get him to jog with sweat pouring down his well-chiseled body and.. you guessed it... VOICE OVERS! Stop taking shortcuts Samar! Make us feel the change with the character ok? Atleast TRY!

Over all.. ** and a 1/2 out of 5. With a cast like what he had, who could he go so wrong? Disappointing.