Can anyone stop Ajay Devgan?. Review on Zameen

In the recent years Ajay Devgan has proved himself over and over as a brilliant actor who has a loyal fan following and amazing screen presence.From the son of fight master Veeru Devgan to a hit actio hero to a flop actor and slotted as a hero of the front benchers Ajay has come along long long way.Starting from Company he has literally gone on a rampage.Every film starring him ,even the long in the making Parwana has Ajay delivering the goods after he played the cool don in Company.In short Ajay has not delivered a total disaster in the past 2 years.Abhishek Bachchan on the other hand despite having a fan following has not been able to give a big hit.So Zameen was a crucial movie for both of them.I was very curious to know whether Zameen will be the much needed dud in Ajay's flourishing carrier or the much needed hit for Abhishek.This led me to watch the movie in theatre on the first day.The movie is a fast paced decent action entertainer if u overlook the twisting of facts.

Col. Ranvir Singh Ranawat(Ajay Devgan) takes his commandos to raid the hideouts of the terrorist group Al Tahir after intelligence and ministry conclude that it is the most dreaded terrorist outfit.Their leader is Zaheer Khan who is popularly known as Baba Zaheer(Ghazi Baba anyone ,played by Mukesh Tiwari).Ranvir succeeds in capturing the dreaded terrorist after a lot of blood-shed.The government is happy and the defence thinks that Al-Tahir activities will slow down after this.But contrary to their beliefs Al-Tahir with the aid of the Pakistani military continue to spread terror in India.On investigation it is revealed that some Indians are helping the organisation and a network is established in India.

Meanwhile in Bombay A.C.P. Jaidev(Abhishek Bachchan) is after some people whom he thinks are into the arm-trade.He is in love with an air hostess(Bipasha Basu) but he is too busy with his duties.He has been brought up by Bashir Ali(Pankaj Dheer) and has a bad past which haunts him.The investigation by the defence brings Ranvir to Bombay and he comes face to face with Jaidev.They share a bond of the past but now are determined to wipe terrorism.

In an attempt to get Baba Zaheer freed the terrorists hijack the Indian Airways( and not Indian Airlines) flight from Bombay to Kathmandu.The flight is forcefully taken to P.O.K. and the passengers are terrorised.Meanwhile Ranvir manages to get through the men who helped the hijacking.He plans to foil the attempts of the hijackers by taking a commando squad alongwith the negotiators.Jaidev thinks that this is the only way to get over his terrible past and pleads Ranvir to take him as the chief negotitaor.What follows is pure pulp fiction and after releasing the passengers both the heroes eliminate the terrorists and Baba Zaheer.

A movie like this will have a set of critics who will feel that what we are trying to please ourselves by showing what we could not achieve in reality.If you go to Zameen with the prospect of watching reality then you might be disappointed.Although the script penned by former rediff.com reporter Suparn Verma has gone into the details of the 1999 hijacking and refernces have been made to the attack on parliament but the movie moves to pure fiction after a point.The network showing the inclusion of a professor is based on the real life incident of the professor who helped militants in the attack on the parliament.The dailogues by Jved Siddiqui are good and the refrences drawn from Quran by Pankaj Dheer are well written.The anti Pakistan dailogues also invoke claps and whistles from the crowd.If we do not apply logic and facts then the screenplay is very tight and quite entertaining.

Rohit Shetty makes his debut as a director with Zameen.Son of the late villain and fight master Shetty ,Rohit rightfully choses an out and action movie as his debut.The direction is quite good and he suceeds in making Zameen a fast paced action movie.The highlight of the movie is its action by Jai Singh.Although at times the slow motion shots and unecessary blowing of cars looks odd still some scenes,especially the first fight between Ajay and Mukesh Tiwari are shot very well.The continous background score of 'Satyamev Jayate' and 'Vande Mataram' looks quite jingoistic.The placing of song 'Dilli Ki Sardi' is really bad and it should have been avoided.Thankfully,the director has not included many songs in the otherwise fast movie.Amrita Arora as usual is pathetic in the song ''Dilli Ki Sardi''.Recently we have seen an acute shortage of action movies.Here I would like to SPECIFY the difference between action movies and violent hard hitting movies.Since last decade we have seen many good violent hard-hitting movies like Satya,Vaastav and Gangaajal to name a few.But they cant be called action movies where one comes and enjoys the punches,the blows and action sequences.Thats why Zameen is an action movie as it is pure action and very less hard-hitting.It is a movie which literally fits the label of Popcorn action movies.

When Abhishek Bachchan's debut film Refugee did not do that well my father said that he should come in an action role.Many people think that since Amitabh began his hit phase after Zanjeer,Abhishek will also rise after an action movie.His role has strong shades of Amitabh's role in Kaala Pathar and Aamir Khan's in Sarfarosh.Needless to say that Abhishek is not able to match their histronics.Nevertheless he looks smart and carry a screen presence and dignity to the role.This is the first movie where I liked Abhishek bachchan.Bipasha Basu is her usual.Pankaj Dheer was effective.Mukesh Tiwari although is not as great as he was in Gangaajal(read my review on Gangaajal for more details) but is still effective.I guess Rohit should have signed some popular names to play the hijackers roles.

The reason which makes Zameen above the jingoistic Sunny Deol's anti-Pakistan movies is-Ajay Devgan.I do not know what is he upto.He is simply superb as the colonel.His eyes,screen presence and pan-faced expression show that he has grown a lot since his Naajayaz days.After watching Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam I felt that Ajay had succesfully ventured into Rajendra Kumar's territory.After watching Lajja I thought he enetered Sunil Dutt's territory,after Bhagat Singh it was Manoj Kumar's territory,after Deewangee it was Nana Patekar's and early Shahrukh Khan's and after Zameen it is Sunny Deol's territory.His by now famous underplaying comes as a cool respite to Sunny's over the top shouting.His famous chain-smoking style is present in Zameen as well. The scene where he interoggates the staff of airways is superb.His one liners are great .He simply lifts Zameen to a watchable movie.I wonder if anyone can stop him from doing the constantly good work he is doing.