Apr 01, 2017 12:48 AM
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Did you watch Kuldeep Yadav plotting the wicket of Peter Handscomb in the last Test against Australia. The wrist spinner fooled the batsman into believing that he is going to bowl a wrong’un whereas he actually bowled a chinaman that went through the gates of Handscomb dislodging the stumps. Writer director duo of Neeraj Pandey and Shivam Nair does the same to the audience. Bowled them through the gate! NaamShabana promoted as the story of the making of a spy can at best be called a predictable revenge drama where an undercooked espionage angle is force fitted. The film, a spin off from 2015 sleeper hit Baby, tracing the life of the female agent Shabana Khan, goes so much into the details that after a point it becomes too predictable and boring.
The film opens with two hard to believe pot bellied intelligent agents cornering their target, a dreaded arms dealer whom intelligence agencies of multiple countries are chasing for a decade, in a busy street. As the film progresses the agency decides to send a green horn to neutralize the target that even the experts couldn’t get hold of. So much for sensible writing. The first half that traces the back story is extremely slow. The story lacks conviction and the screen play is incoherent. Even the casting is uninspiring. If taut screen play and well choreographed chases were high point of Baby, Naam Shabana suffers from lazy writing and unimaginative editing. After a point even the background score becomes irritating.
Taapsee Pannu’s laboured acting is too evident in a film where she has almost 120 minutes of screen time. She is solid in scenes where she is kicking some butt, but insipid in scenes where she needs to emote. As far as Manoj Bajpayee is concerned it seems the producer had paid him only for his voice or the director probably forgot what a fine actor he is. It is such a pity that his scope in the film is reduced to just delivering few badly written dialogues. The rest of the cast from Baby including Akshay, Anupam and Danny are used just as dressing in the salad to lure the audience. In espionage movies a lot depends on editing and pace. Sadly in Naam Shabana the editing is sloppy and at 150 minutes it tests your patience.
It is unfortunate that a film which had so much promise at conceptualization stage just ends up taking the audience for a ride. With some solid effort and intention it could have ended up being such an interesting story. I will go out with 2 out of 5 for this confused and badly written film. Patience is a good virtue to possess. So save some money and wait till it gets a Television premier.
