Review of Mission Kashmir

"Mission Kashmir" is Hrithik Roshan's third film, and, as far as I'm concerned, his worst so far. No, it's not a bad film, but it's somewhat disappointing for various reasons. It has neither the charm and entertainment value of "Kaho Na.." nor the substance and artistic touch of "Fiza" with which it shares the basic premise (a young, innocent boy is traumatized by the outbreak of violence and separated from his family). The script is lacking and not up to its ambitions. But that does not mean that the film does not have its share of good moments and ingredients. The cast is mostly competent and delivers. Sanjay Dutt and Sonali Kulkarni as the parents are believable. Preity Zinta's and Jackie Shroff's roles are not enough developed. Hrithik Roshan's Altaaf also suffers from a lack of good scenes that would allow him to sink his teeth into the material. His performance is good, but one can not avoid to compare it to his Amaan in "Fiza", and the comparison is not favourable for "Mission Kashmir". The magic of "Fiza" is missing. It's not his fault but the script's and the director's. His big entrance suffers from inadequate wire work. His breakdown after the bomb explodes is not working in the context. Two problems the director should have noticed and fixed. The performance I enjoyed most was Puru Rajkumar as Malik Ul Khan, an ever smiling devil that gives you the creeps. Technically the film is mostly well executed. The sound design is up to international quality standards and so is the photography most of the time. The slow motion action John Woo style in the end is pretty impressive, although not exactly original. Set design in this scene is outstanding as well. The smoke effects on the opening credits are well done. The music is simply fantastic, but the picturisations are not quite up to it. For example, why has the wonderful song "Chupke Se Suun" be shortened, destroying its internal structure doing so? And why are some of the fantastic sounds of "Rind Posh Maal" 'only' used to show cars driving around? Definitely not what I was expecting based on the soundtrack CD. The DVD of the film is allegedly coming from Columbia-Tristar next year. That means we can expect a new quality reference for Indian DVDs.