Nice story but not very well filmed

best_ciit

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.

score 4/10

best_ciit 19 October 2014

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3107593/