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Touches You

So much average

best movie i've ever seen.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" attempts to proclaim its profundity by drawing a half-baked allegory between the fundamentals of American entrepreneurial spirit and the fundamentals of Islamic faith. But it ignores the fundamentals of filmmaking. If you're going to spend fifteen million dollars on a film and hope to earn more than three million at the box office, you should really invest a tiny portion of that money in a tripod. These incessant jiggly-cam shots are very distracting and shatter the audience's willful suspension of disbelief by reminding them they are watching a movie. But the real cost and benefit of using some sort of rigid support system is that it forces filmmakers to plan their shots. The mise en scène is functional, but not inspired. Image stability was a serious problem. Some of the shots look like the operator was trying to balance on a Gyro Board, which weren't even available in 2012. You need to deliver on what Snyder called the promise of the premise. The protagonist meets with a writer who has a simple question for which there is a simple answer. Instead the protagonist tells the writer that he must listen to his whole story from the very beginning before making a decision. He then launches into a rambling discourse that seems like an overwrought apologia at times and a travelogue at other, accentuated by a lot of music that is undecipherable to anybody who doesn't speak Urdu. It all seems very authentic and much of it would be quite interesting in a different film, but it has little relevance to the inciting incident. The film is overly long at 130 minutes. It could easily be trimmed to 90 minutes or less. The B-story isn't at all credible. Kate Hudson is only three and a half years older than Riz Ahmed, but her makeup and wardrobe did her no favors. At thirty, Ahmed looks like he could actually be a twenty-year-old college senior in the early scenes. But Hudson looks closer to forty than twenty. Her character is a self-centered aggressively grungy dingbat nutjob spoiled brat with a lot of baggage from a prior relationship and imprudent choices. She wears more clothes in her bedroom scene than Pakistani women wear going to market. Her hair, dyed black possibly to avoid a cliché about Asian men being fascinated with blondes, looks only marginally better than Maggie Grace's hair in "Lockout." Even though opposites often attract, the relationship isn't the least bit credible or interesting. Changez's crisis of conscience is not credible. One can understand the cause and the offense he takes. But this is a man of action who aspires to change the world. He's a brilliant analyst who has already his talent for developing creative business strategies. But instead of offering a brilliant counterproposal that would be more consonant with his ideals and values, he behaves in an unexpected and inexplicable manner. Cross's response also seems uncharacteristic. At one point Changez receives a promotion that doesn't really seem earned. We see that he is hard working and dedicated, but we don't see an accomplishment that would justify the promotion. If he's promoted, there must be a middle level of management, but we don't see them do anything. The ending seems contrived. Bobby's actions are inconsistent with his behavior throughout the earlier scenes. Much simpler outcomes seem much more likely. Somebody fires a rifle at a target about fifty meters away and misses by about a meter, but a gun accidentally discharges with deadly accuracy. The discharge makes no sense either. Modern pistols are certified drop safe, meaning they won't discharge if dropped from a height of 101 centimeters, and the person had enough training to know he shouldn't have had his finger on the trigger. The movie is a political thriller with few thrills and little insight into the main character's evolving political viewpoints. I did like one line where a professor talked about the American dream and then asked the class if there was a Pakistani dream that didn't involve leaving the country. The insights into daily life in Pakistan and the work of a valuation analyst seemed authentic, although the scenes of Pakistani culture were unnecessarily long and the office scenes lacked depth. The performances were good, although it's difficult to deliver a convincing performance when aspects of the story seem contrived and the camera motion constantly reminds the audience that none of this is real.

Mira Nair (age 55) is almost more of an international than an Indian film director per se with such co-production's as Mississippi Masala (1991, Denzel Washington) and "Vanity Fair" (2004, starring Reese Witherspoon) in her kitty, but she is better known for such films as Salaam Bombay (1988) and "Kama Sutra, a Tale of Love" (1998), and "Monsoon Wedding" (2001) which remains, till date, the most successful Indian film internationally outside of the NRI market. Wedding won the Golden Lion (Best Film prize) at the Venice Film Festival making her the first female recipient ever of this award. Her film "The Namesake" premièred at Rome in 2006 and was an international critical success. "Amelia" the story of American aviatrix Amelia Earhart portrayed by Hilary Swank, came out in 2009 and was met with mixed reviews but demonstrated the director's versatility and ability to handle all-American as well as Indian subject matter. Among those who praised Earhart was noted American critic Roger Ebert (recently deceased) who described it as "a perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted", an opinion with which this writer completely concurs. "Nair's "Reluctant Fundamentalist" opens in Lahore, Pakistan (actual location) with the kidnapping of an American diplomat and an interview by an American journalist with a young American-Pakistani college professor, Changez, suspected of inciting anti-American terrorism. The scruffy looking journalist, actually an undercover CIA agent who is fluent in Urdu, is a close friend of the kidnapped American and is hoping to get information that will secure his release. Changez agrees to be interviewed under condition that the journalist listen to his entire story through to the end. Agreed. We now learn in flashback that Changez (Genghis?) was an outstanding student at Princeton and then held down a top job in a leading New York financial firm. Not only that, his adviser there was an iconic second generation Hollywood character actor. He had everything going for him except for his name and swarthy looks when 9/11 hit. Forced to undergo humiliating racial profiling at airports and slurs from former colleagues he gradually transforms from a staunch believer in the American dream to a die hard opponent of the system that is degrading him. He returns to Pakistan as a university professor in Lahore where he incites his students to anti-American activities.Through this dialogue in the threatening atmosphere of a crowded Pakistani café we begin to see the other side of terrorism -- how our own prejudices can turn a faithful American citizen into a disillusioned "reluctant" terrorist. There is consistent tension in the film and it ends with a rousing shootout, but it leaves you asking lots of questions. Nair herself says that her purpose was to do just that --create a dialogue on a subject nobody has the answers to but everybody has an opinion on. The main question on my mind after the screening was "why did I sit all the way through this and not take an early walk?" In a lengthy lecture after the screening Nair revealed that her father was actually a Punjabi from Lahore who had to move to India after partition, which makes her feel especially close to this story and enabled her to get permission to shoot on real locations in Pakistan --most unusual for an Indian filmmaker. The central role of Changez, on the cusp of two conflicting cultures, is played convincingly by British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed, the American journalist less convincingly -- far less convincingly -- by Liev Scheiber, Kiefer Sutherland is Changez's breezy corporate mentor in New York, and Changez's wishy-washy American love interest was Kate Hudson. Based on a scenario with too much stretch and strain and undermined by too many leaky supporting roles the entire film was pretty flounder-aroundery and failed to measure up to the promise of the title.

I am not a regular reviewer so please excuse my English writing.Well, yes. A very good "fiction" story. Riz Ahmad did good job. Om Puri sir, excellent as always. The story is so powerful that it really dragged me to IMDb to appreciate it. I love the Qawwali from Coke Studio from the very famous group.Most of the "Pakistani" parts are filmed in India so there are flaws. Let's come to the poor location selection, bad choices of characters and worst dialogs as always in the Hollywood movies made for South Asia. Shabana Aazmi was a huge misfit because the family is a Lahori family but Shabana's Punjabi is not that up to the mark.Secondly, the universities in Pakistan (even the worst ones) don't look like the one shown in the movie. Even if I assume it's a fiction movie, there must me something close to reality. You can check google images of "Pakistani universities".Thirdly, why, when we show people from Pakistan, there are Muslim caps everywhere :). Guys, there are hardly few people in Lahore who wear Muslim caps but I know the director have tried to show the religious extremism but it's not the best way.And Shabana says to Riz on the phone, "Electricity is not available and Eid Mubarak". I can assure that the time shown in the movie, at that time there was hardly any loadshedding in Pakistan. In fact between 1998 - 2008, most of the people forgot about power cuts. Power cuts started from 2008. Even if there is a powercut, a Princeton graduate with a huge salary can't afford a power generator in his house in Lahore :)Riz Khan's acting is good but he recited a very common verse of Iqbal that was wrong. I am sure even a lot of Indians know the correct version.I would say very good writing but poor direction and bad location choices.

I had to study the Reluctant Fundamentalist for my year 12 English class two years ago and was captivated by the vision the novel had, so many flaws one country has under the banner of what is labeled 'freedom', 'patriosim' and 'fairness' and the novel exposed the underlying idea of what the world truly is or what it could be and what it was, all wrapped in a cat and mouse game between two people we really do not know about. Sadly, the transition between the book to the film was poorly executed and underhanded. The racial views and the full scope of the reality that is our history is made redundant or not capitalized on. What was disappointing was the game of cat and mouse, the mystery between the unknown American and Changez was changed to appeal to more action hungry viewers, like a weak Bourne Identity film which was just very sad as Ahmed and Schreiber would have really made a tense conversation that can border on threatening if handled in the right hands. In the movie, we have a typical, hostage like scenario where a slight mystery to each factions purposes.I was quite disappointed but I got through to the end. I award TRF a 5/10