Darr ke aage jeet nahin.....bakwaas film hai!!!

Grade: F

Mission Istaanbul

Indian Release Date: 25/07/08
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 30 Minutes

Cast: Zayed Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Shreya Saran, Nikitin Dheer, Sunil Shetty
Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Screenplay: Suresh Nair
Cinematography: Gururaj R J
Music: Anu Malik, Mika Singh, Chirantan Bhatt, Shamir Tandon

Dear everyone, I have an important announcement to make, the world’s terrorist problem is about to be solved. Thanks to the brilliance of ‘Mission Istaanbul’ we now know why terrorists carry out their deadly acts… it’s because they want to go to heaven.

Well that was a bit obvious, now for the really big revelation, why is it that they want to go to heaven? Well duh, it’s for the all you can eat biryani, that they can have any time of day without even having to ask! So there you go world leaders, promise the terrorists a never ending supply of biryani and your problem is solved!

I kid you not; this is one of the many pearls of wisdom given by Mission Istanbul and really does set the tone of what the movie is like. Another brilliant line is that ‘terrorism should be left to terrorists’… well really… that’s uh… super intelligent, has really made me see the light. It is one of the most stupid, illogical movies that you will ever see, much worse than Tashan in that respect.

Our young hero Vikas Sagar (Zayed Khan) is a reporter who takes up dangerous assignments and risks his life, blah blah blah. His wife Anjali (Shreya Saran) is sick of all this and has decided to divorce him… best decision she could ever have made. Vikas goes off to work at a television station ‘Al Johara’ in Turkey where he soon discovers a sinister plot after his co-reporter Owais (Suniel Shetty) is killed. Lucky Suniel… he got out of the film before it really got bad. Around this time a smirking long haired Turkish commando called Rizwan (Vivek Oberoi) turns up to help him and expose the channel and its Director… a guy who looks more like he belongs in a Lokhandwala gym than running a television station.

Basically it’s a rip off of Tom Cruise’s ‘The Firm (1993)’ shifted to a television station… surprise, surprise… Al Johara is a base for the terrorists to operate from. Great… they must be giving them some good biryani.

Our two heroes are cooler than cool… well at least they’d like to think they are while slipping on their designer shades, flicking back their hair (well… Vivek does) and enjoying some Mountain Dew because of course… Daar ke Aage Jeet… and everyone needs to pause and have a Mountain Dew before beating the crap out of 20 ruffians right? (Note to army and police force: supply all officers with Mountain Dew in future; ass kicking of criminals and insurgents is assured).  Vivek is so cool in fact that he even gets to kill the movie’s equivalent of Osama Bin Laden, and then never bothers to inform the world authorities about it.

Meanwhile Abhishek Bachchan stops in for an item number, the Northern Territory apparently shifts from Australia to Afghanistan (hello people, there’s no such place in Afghanistan, check your maps…), Chetan Hansraj graduates from hamming it up in Balaji serials to hamming it up in Balaji films, a few scenes are stolen from the Matrix, Enemy of The State, The Siege & god knows what-not which just made me bang my head against the wall at the sheer stupidity and wondered when it would be over.

Well it was, with a suitably stupid ending and I thanked my lucky stars I would never have to watch it again. The film is quite stylishly shot… it’s simply that the direction, dialogues and acting are so incredibly bad! But hey, I do want to go to Turkey and have some Baklava….


Final Verdict: Darr ke aage jeet nahi… daar ke aage bakhwas film hai!

Grade: F for F’ing hell, why does anyone believe audiences will fall for this crap?

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