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Cinema fascinates, provokes, inspires and entertains more powerfully than any other media. Shaaditimes seeks to understand and interpret human relationships in all its nuances. What better way to explore these intricacies than reviewing films that explore the agonies and ecstasies of human relationships? If you too want to review any such film please do send it in to the editor.

Yash Raj Films'
Kabul Express

Produced by: Aditya Chopra
Written and directed by: Kabir Khan
Music by: Julius Packiam
Featuring: John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Salman Shahid, Hanif Hum Ghum, Baraki & Linda Arsenio

Memorable journey
Life can be stranger and more entertaining than fiction. Writer-director Kabir Khan, inarguably the best director to be flagged off by the Yash Raj banner after Aditya Chopra himself over a decade ago, proves this graphically. Inspired from several real incidents from his own trip to war-torn, post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2001, Kabir transports his two heroes Jai (John Abraham) and Suhail (Arshad Warsi) into the same milieu at around the same time frame and builds a thoroughly gripping and gritty drama that not only entertains with a moderate modicum of thrills but also probes into relationships between nations and their peoples.

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Out for an insightful report and possible interviews with real Taliban, Jai and Suhail find themselves in the middle of strife even now. If a 5-star hotel has neither roof nor doors and is just a bombed ruin, the local people love Hindi cinema. There is trouble in the shape of the locals who hate the Talibs and want to kill them, there are brigands in the desert out to loot, and Americans bombing indiscriminately.

As they look for a Taliban and are willing to pay for an exclusive story, a Talib finds them instead: On their journey in their guide Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum)'s Toyota which is named Kabul Express, Jai and Suhail encounter a Pakistani Talib (Salman Shahid) desperate to reach the Paki border, who at gunpoint asks them to drive him safely through the vigilantes. Into their life as well as Kabul Express later comes (out of compulsion) intrepid American scribe Jessica (Linda Arsenio) who represents the American perspective. Their journey takes them across the stark sands of Afghanistan, where they discover new shades of human virtues and failings, and the Talib even proves to have a human side to him.

Kabul Express expressly proves that a gritty, realistic film can be completely riveting and entertaining. Writer-director Kabir Khan's script's impact multiplies because he underplays everything from the action and the dialogues to the humour and the incisive insights into world politics that mess up humanity and their bonds. His dialogues are amazing, as is his directorial skill that merges the crispness of his documentary background with the challengingly complex demands of a commercial film targeted at international audiences.

The film makes most of its points through telling visuals and statements from the characters, like the role of America in the sordid mess, the ambitions of reporters who at some level yearn to capitalise and build their future on human tragedy and gore, the common likes and dislikes between neighbouring races like India and Pakistan in particular as well as Afghanistan, and the perfidious Pakistani military system that callously disowns its men when political expediency overrules basic human decency. One of the highlights is the sequence where the Talib tries to visit his estranged married daughter, who hates him for his becoming one.

The brilliant background score by Julius Packiam (an Indian incidentally) only synergises with the fantastic camerawork by Anshuman Mahaley. Amitabh Krrish Shukla's editing is exemplary, and the locales are breathtaking, their starkness enhanced by the tragedy that looms large over those landscapes.

Never dry yet never inane, the film is lifted immensely by the fabulous performances of John Abraham (wonderfully understated) and Salman Shahid, with Arshad Warsi bringing in some laconic humour with characteristic ease. Hanif Hum Ghum impresses, and his conviction shows because the actor had been tortured by the Talibans in real life. Linda Arsenio is expressive, and a word of praise is due to Baraki, the commandant of the mujihideen, who is a Hindi cinema buff as much as you and I.

Kabul Express is a film that will do wonders for India's image as a film making country. For Yash Raj Films, it will earn more respect than their far-bigger hits, and mean a major step for them into the international arena.

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