Om Puri Is The Terror Attack Mastermind In Kurbaan

Naseeruddin Shah ostensibly played a terror mastermind in Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday. But finally it turned out to be the role of messiah on a mission to cleanse society. Now Naseeruddin’s archrival Om Puri has taken on the role of an unapologetic hardcore terrorist in Rensil d’Silva’s Kurbaan.
Bollywood characters derived from headlines, specially ones that are taken from extremist news reports, are now being seen as tricky territory.
In Rensil d’Silva’s hushed and much talked-about Kurbaan, Om Puri plays a hardcore terrorist who masterminds a massive terror attack in the US.
Surely a politically incorrect role for an actor, if ever there was one! In fact Irrfan Khan had said no to playing a global terrorist in Kurbaan.
Playing a terrorist automatically puts the actor in the suspicious list on the international airports. And, so what if it’s just a part in a film?
But Om is fearless. “I’m aware of the repercussions. I’m also aware others actors turndown parts of terrorists. But I’ve no such reservations. A role is a role. We cannot be moral and judgmental about the characters we play. In Kurbaan, I play the terror mastermind, a fully committed jehaadi who is ready to sacrifice everything including his wife (Kirron Kher) for the cause.”
It’s a role with deep reverberations. But Om is prepared for the backlash. “I played a radical mullah mouthing rabid dialogues in Jagmohan Mundhra’s Shoot On Sight. It was just a role. I think our audiences are mature enough to understand this.”
However the audiences’ level of maturity seems to have gone for a toss. Om has apparently started receiving warnings from fundamentalist organizations about playing an extremist.
Om says he won’t be deterred. “I played a Pakistani in Charlie Wilson’s War, and East Is East. And now in October, I go into the sequel West Is West with the same cast. This time Vijay Raaz and Ila Arun have been added. Is it dangerous to experiment with morality in your actors? Let it be. In my new release Baabarr, I played a corrupt colorful cop who doesn’t think tweaking the law is a big deal. It’s good to enter the hearts and minds of people who live by their own weird morality.”

‘Baabarr’ is too violent to be entertaining

Film: “Baabarr”
Cast: Om Puri, Mithun Chakbraborty, Sushant Singh, Sohum Shah; Director: Ashu Trikha;

It’s a brutal world out there. Welcome to the killing fields of Lucknow. The paths and alleys are bathed in blood. The roads are strewn with corpses. It’s almost as if the city has no respite from violence.

“Baabarr” is arguably one of the most violent films ever made in Hindi. It inhabits a world where the characters live in crusty brick lanes, homes that have seen more slaying and slaughtering than the butcher shops where some of director Trikha’s characters work.

Full marks to the director, art director Jayant Deshmukh and cinematographer Suhass Gujarathi for giving the work a gritty, edgy lived-in feeling. From the first frame onwards, Trikha goes for the corkscrew effect. The tension is unpretentiously relentless and real.

Once we enter this doomed world, there’s no way out. Writer Ikram Akhtar gets substantial help from action director Abbas Ali Moghul in giving the characters their sense of adrift despair.

The characters never sit back to watch their own damned lives. They are either running from or chasing their adversaries. The world of the normal is given the slip, as we slip and slide into kingdom of the doomed and the damned.

The protagonist Baabarr’s life is chronicled in no particular scheme except the one that occurs naturally to the character’s destiny. There’s a ruthlessly rigorous rhythm to the narration, somewhat like a Ram Gopal Varma film.

In fact there’s a reference to Varma’s “Satya” towards the end when the hero dismisses it as “just a film” when in fact his own life replicates the story of gangsterism in “Satya” with far more brutal candour.

But the greatest virtue of “Baabarr” is also its undoing. The world that Trika creates is too devoid of the soft moments and too violent and barbaric to be accepted as entertainment.

The performances match the mood of heightened anxiety. Om Puri as a cheesy, side-changing cop and Sushant Singh as the protagonist’s arch-enemy blend with the fiercely bloody fabric of storytelling.

Tinu Anand has one outstanding sequence where he tries to stop the protagonist from killing him through emotional blackmail.

Newcomer Sohum Shah gets bravely into the sanguinary act. However the soundtrack is ear-splitting. Does violence have to be so noisy?

Om Puri forever policing

Veteran actor Om Puri has made another record in his filmy career, apart from being superfluously awarded for his varied performances. He has donned the khaki uniform for the 30th time in his filmy career.
Ardhsatya was the first film when he began policing onscreen and from thereon it was no looking back, and once again in the film Baabar he puts on the khaki. His stint as a policewala in comedy or intense situation has been entertaining until today. “In Ardhsatya I was an honest police officer, but in Baabar I am a corrupt officer who helps the accuse. He is friends with him in the film, but does not hesitate to even get him killed when he comes in the way of his objective. It was fun doing the character of Chaturvedi that does exist in reality,” speaks the man himself.
He admits though after the shoot he is back to his normal self, but his stint as policewaala in Ardhsatya has deeply impacted him. Salute saab

Baabarr team launches its Music

The cast and crew of forthcoming release Baabarr assembled together to celebrate the music of the film. Addressing the press with the story of the film and the beautiful musical score, the entire team also introduced newcomer Soham Shah who is making his debut with this film.

Present at the occasion were, Mithun Chakraborty, ravishing Urvashi Sharma, Mukesh Tiwari, Govind Namdeo, Bhaiyaa Jee, Om Puri, A.N Chaturvedi and Tinu Anand. Along with them of course the captain of ship Ashu Trikha made his presence. The entire team launched the music of the film, which is scored by Anand Raj Anand, who also made his presence felt at the occasion.

Baabarr is slated to release on September 11.