ZINDA

Did you ever imagine a Hindi film with scenes of immense blood-gore? Gone are the days when we used to see swords and knives for our villains as weapons for killing… Welcome to the new age in Bollywood. Here our hero, a rather rough Sanjay Dutt with an air of absolute villainous dexterity around him tortures his enemies with a drilling machine. The director doesn’t stop there and shows Sanjay Dutt ruthlessly uprooting teeth from another bad man’s mouth and very insensitively slay scores of his enemies. These are just few of some really, really, disturbing sequences from Sanjay Gupta’s ZINDA.

A frame-to-frame copy of the Korean hit OLDBOY, ZINDA takes us into what can easily be called unseen territory in bollywood. ZINDA like all Sanjay Gupta films is stylish, mean and a shameless copy. I had seen OLDBOY a few months and I was jolted by its gruesome and gross picturization. I would have loved ZINDA if I hadn’t seen this Korean classic.

ZINDA is very entertaining nonetheless. It is about a software engineer called Bala (Sanjay Dutt) who lives in Bangkok with his wife (Celina Jaitley). One fine day, Bala is kidnapped and is captivated in a dingy room for 14 years. Bala comes to know that his wife has been killed. He has no idea why he has been held like this… He has no idea who has done it to him… Now Bala has only one aim in life; to come face-to-face with his faceless enemy. This enemy is Vikram Kapoor (John Abraham) a business tycoon who wants to screw Bala’s life at any cost. Bala is freed from his captivity one day and is told to find out who his enemy is. Bala gets the help of a local cab driver, Jenny (Lara Dutta) and his old friend (Mahesh Manjrekar) to find out Vikram’s whereabouts.

John Abraham shocks with a brilliantly subtle performance as the cold, villain of ZINDA. He has finally proved that he can act. Sanjay Dutt makes the film what it is with a rocking performance. He successfully brings out the angst and agony of a man who has been held in captivity for 14 years with utmost conviction.

The cinematography (Sanjay F Gupta) and a haunting soundtrack (Strings) make ZINDA a stylish and superb package.

ZINDA has a couple of deterrents; it has a very silly and unconvincing climax and it is too violent for the average Indian cinegoer.

I, personally enjoyed ZINDA as a movie but I am very pissed with the fact that it is a very shameless, unauthorized copy of OLDBOY. Mr. Sanjay Gupta, when you can make a copy well, why don’t you go for something that is original?

Worth a watch anyways. Recommended.

My Rating: * * *