The attacks of 26 /11

Any film that is based on a story as worth telling as the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November of 2008 only just needs to do a decent enough job to make a movie completely worth watching.

Just for a quick recap of the incidents of the fateful day , a bunch of heavily armed terrorists swooped in on the shores of Mumbai, and opened fire on unsuspecting denizens in amongst other places one of the most densely packed places in one of the most densely packed cities of the world. The sanctum sanctorum of people congestion as it were.

The terrorists spared none, and had come with one and only one purpose on their indoctrinated minds, a no holds barred massacre of the people of Mumbai with a special focus on expats from the west and Jews living in a Mumbai Jew Haven.

The story makes for a really good base from where a movie can take off . Just imagine the emotional intensity generated in a setting where people are having a nice dinner in one of the 5-stars, or having a nice evening at Leopolds, exchanging notes on culture and getting soaked in inebriated levity. And suddenly out of nowhere without an inkling or slightest foreboding, a pack of heavily armed zealots descend and unleash indiscriminate mayhem.

To be fair the film does enough justice at the start, when the terrorists capture the fishing boat. The tension in the initial stretch is palpable and one expects that it will only intensify as the film goes along.

But the film loses its fizz immediately after that and the scenes that follow come across as non-sequitur to the opening. One more thing that does not help in the storytelling effort is Nana Patekar's heavily Marathi laced speech in the track when he testifies before the inquiry panel. Nana's Marathi accent and diction is highly discordant and one wonders the reasons behind the choice of an actor who does not have his Hindi diction right for a role that involves dialogues to be delivered in chaste Hindi. Though no big fan of the big B, I think he would have made for a much better choice here, but in fact the best choice for such a scene would be KK menon. Who can forget his poignant speech at the end of the Movie Shaurya, where each word he spoke had a certain gravity to it.

Nana's almost Marathi speech is hard on the ears and at one point when he pronounces bees as biss, I was literally bissed ooops pissed.

The Hotel and Cafe Leopold scenes never really touch you, and it feels as if you are watching journalistic coverage of the events. The contrast between the general mood in the Hotel and the feeling of Horror after the attacks is never really colored well.

On the other hand the Hospital scene again does some justice to the plot and you really feel shocked at the doctor and the old patient's killing.

The way the terrorists are shown to be moving around the hospital, they do come across as a sinister and dark force to be afraid of. When they come face to face with the doctor, the feeling of shock comes through nicely indeed.

Also at one point when the assistant commissioner, played by Nana, looks helpless as his subordinates seek guidance from him is well portrayed , is poignant and conveys the scale of the terror attack.

But other than that there not much worth writing home about in the film. I was not expecting some important incidents to be omitted, like the events of Nariman House where a Rabi and his family were killed and the action taken by the NSG commandos, or the terrorists' hold up and eventual extermination at the Taj Hotel.

Indeed there was a lot of material to be put into a 2.5 hr long film or even a 3 hr film, but that is where good film making is different from the average. A good film picks up the most important pearls from the ocean of incidents of a story and weaves it in skillfully to make a necklace that is seamless, and never disproportionate .

Unfortunately the choice of pearls here seems rather random, only a few of them shine and only a little at that and they are weaved into a story in a way that the whole is neither seamless nor proportionate.