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The Killer Hindi
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The Killer
Review :
'The Killer'- Just another Hollywood remake
By Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service Rating:
* 1/2
Film: "The Killer"; Cast: Irrfan Khan, Emran Hashmi, Nisha
Kothari; Director: Hasnain S. Hyderabadwala and Raksha Mistry;
Hollywood remakes are most of the time only an occasion for the
adapted version to be ridiculed and "The Killer" just about
escapes this fate.
If you haven't seen Michael Mann's "Collateral", you wouldn't
know that nearly every moment in "The Killer" is inspired by the
original. And what has not been derived from it
is not worth the script's while.
The two unlikely partners in the confused collaboration between
a cabbie and his criminal passenger are played by actors who
seem oblivious of what Jamie Foxx and Tom
Cruise did in the original.
There are some interesting moments of shared camaraderie between
Irrfan Khan and Emran Hashmi and they have been given some crisp
lines to mouth. The words allow
them to explore with audacity the chasm between crime and
morality.
Dark in tone, the interface between the two actors is often
broken by songs featuring the exuberant romantic lead (Nisha
Kothari) who walks in with a confident swagger that
could have damaged the film's taut equilibrium.
She manages to intrude without disrupting the main drama, which
involves just two characters and a series of brutal murders. The
cops on the killer's trail are so caricatural
that crime often gets glorified.
The narration has a certain momentum that the co-directors don't
allow to be lost till the feverish finale when the inexperienced
cabbie finally takes on the ruthless assassin.
The incidental characters are kept at a hand's distance from the
revved-up plot. But finally, you aren't really interested in the
body count. You just want to know why a
section of Bollywood chooses to remake American flicks that have
no cultural roots in Hindi cinema.
Realising this, the location is shifted to Dubai. The crowded
airport, over-loaded highways and sleek malls lend themselves
well to the sense of impending doom.
For the rest, the film is largely a pointless take on what
constitutes the anatomy of crime.
As the simple-hearted cabbie interacts with the crime-lord we
don't really get to know why criminals behave in a particular
way.
All we see are two differently-profiled actors holding up the
film for all it's worth.
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