Director: Subhash Ghai
Cast:Ìý Anil Kapoor, Anurag Sinha, Shefali Shah, Aditi Sharma
Information: Contains terrorism theme
Running time: 2hrs 13 mins
BBFC certificate: 12A
Rating: 7 March 2008 by EROS International
Film rating: 4/5
A young Afghan suicide bomber, using the identity of Numair Qazi (Anurag) - a deceased Muslim whose parents died in the Gujarat riots - comes to Delhi on a mission.
His aim is to blast a bomb at the 15th August Red Forte celebrations.
Anil Kapoor and Anurag Sinha
Numair initially takes shelter in a wise old poet’s house situated in Chandni Chowk.
But Urdu professor Rajan Mathur (Anil) and his sharp-tongued activist wife Roma (Shefali) takes a liking to this quite and grim lad.
They allow him to stay in their home until he finds himself a job to earn a living.
As D-day approaches, Numair comes across various characters happily coexisting irrespective of their race or religion.
Despite keeping a focused mind, Numair gets caught in an emotional dilemma whether to go ahead with his mission.
Renowned for making outstanding Hindi commercial films, director Subhash Ghai takes a look at the hard-hitting much talked about subject in today’s times – suicide bombers.
Full credit goes to Ghai for depicting communal harmony with great sensitivity.
With only a few dialogues in the film, newcomer Anurag Sinha realistically exudes the anger and deep-rooted beliefs which his character requires.
He conveys his emotions through his smouldering and sullen eyes. For a debut performance it is quite impressive!
Whilst veteran ever-so-versatile actor, Anil Kapoor gives his usual best as the emotionally restraint Rajan, it is Shefali as the hot- tempered, headstrong activist wife, Roma that catches you by surprise.
Ghai deserves to be applauded for introducing other characters like the poet, Gaffar Bhai, played by theatre actor Habib Tanvir. He intellectually adds lighter moments to an otherwise tension filled narrative.
On the whole, Black N white can be described as a ‘film noire’ genre with a thought provoking underlying message deserved to be seen by all.
Reviewed by Manish Gajjar
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Bollywood Correspondent
