Zinda - Dies a Slow Death... Review on Zinda

The dark side of human mind is exposed in the film leaving a lot more unanswered questions till the end even while you get the answer for caging a man for 14 years. Director Sanjay Gupta definitely belongs to a class of directors who has the ability to make an impressionable presentation but fails to deliver in some aspects of his story telling. Unlike his previous movies where there was only hype and no substance (musafir), this movie kept a low profile till its release with some substance to reckon for.

The story starts with Balajit Roy (Sanjay Dutt), a software professional, happily enjoying his first anniversary with his wife (Celina) & school friend Joy’s (Mahesh Manjerakar) in Bangkok when one day he suddenly disappears from his home and finds himself in a dark room. He is served the same wonton (Chinese bhajiya) for 14 years, and basic amenities of life along with T.V. to keep him Zinda. It also has a CCTV that keeps vigilance on his activities so that he doesn’t take any step to end the movie Zinda. He learns fighting abilities from the T.V. that he never really ends up using it during his King Kong style killing in the second half. The first half is gripping and very well focused on the subject. It is the second half where Sanjay Gupta looses grip on his story telling and it seems that he was in a mad rush to complete the movie.

Bala is left free in an Armani Suit with a mobile and enough cash to find the reason for his term of jail. He hires a Taxi that is driven by Jinnie(Lara Dutta) who tries hard to play the modern Basanti (Sholay) but fails to do justice. They go on a wonton tasting spree in Bangkok to finally nab a professional (Raj Zutsi) who is into the business of caging people for the sake of money. Bala is later directed to his school friend Joy’s (Mahesh Manjerakar) house and back to Jinnie ‘s house just to create confusion and this is where it starts dragging. Multimillionaire Rohit (John Abraham), who is Bala’s real culprit, gives him another 4 days to find the reason of his jail term. Now we really don’t understand the funda of 4 days. During this period of 4 days Bala’s first priority is to satiate his longstanding hiatus of sexual desire with Jinnie, which is though aesthetically handled, but was not called for. Instead of Bala running after Rohit it was Rohit who was reminding him to find the cause of his jail term time and again, which is funny. The cause of the whole saga is Rohit’s ragging incident in the school (Rohit is also from the same school but junior by 7 yrs.) that had taken a gory shape. Mahesh Manjerakar who is portrayed as Bala’s best friend surprisingly doesn’t help in him in his quest and is also shown playing billiards with John Abraham which is not convincing at all.

If in today’s world if we believe in serial killers and psycho killers then one should also believe in such stories of revenge. But the story drags & confuses in the second half where Bala’s chase could have been more interesting than otherwise. Sanjay Dutt has given a power packed performance, no doubt about that. Celina Jaitley has a guest appearance( a dignified extra) role, but in the credits of the movie she is the second lead heroine goes all out to prove how desperate she is to share the screen presence with Sanjay Dutt and the likes. Lara Dutta is strictly O.K. and John Abraham is impressive in some scenes, the negative role suits him though. The music and songs in the movie have been jelled well with the storyline. Sadly the movie is very depressing and gory due to the brutal bloodshed, which is generally not accepted by people who are out for entertainment.