Zameen

Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, and the lovely Bipasa Basu in an action packed movie about patriotism, courage, honor, and redemption. Formulaic, but very well-done. To be honest, we go to movies like this to watch the good guys kick bad guy butt. We don't go to movies like this to see complex character development and major issues resolved. It's a movie, not a psychology course.

Ajay Devigan is a talented and versitile actor. He needs more opportunities to do things other than kick pakistani butt.

Having said that, very few people kick butt better than he does. This movie is prime proof of that. I wish that his character had more room to either grow or reveal more of himself, but that might have slowed it down a lot.

Ajay plays a character here who has great love of country, great hatred of terrorists, and not much of anything else. His character, for most of the movie is very flat. Only near the end (letting Abishek come on the rescue mission, grenade scene in the helicopter, salute at the end)do we get to see any of the range that we all know he has within him.

One plot note: I really wish Ajay had gotten a chance to beat the crap of of the traitor he finds.

Abhishek Bachchan gets the 'meatier' role. We get to see his character suffer, deal, and eventually earn his redemption. We get to see a man trying to rebuild his life after one mistake nearly destroys him. We literally feel his pain, share his anger when he finds a traitor, share his dawning realization that his beloved is on the hijacked aircraft. He is everybody who has ever made a mistake and had to work his way back from disgrace. Although as Ajay is the 'star,' this is really Abhishek's movie. He delivers.

Bipasa Basu: the siren of Jism. It is always good to see her, but this is clearly not the most challenging role of her career. Her character is also pretty two-dimensional, although she does a fine job with her song. Like Ajay, adding more depth to the fiance/stewardess role might have slowed the pace.

Minor actors: The terrorists went way over the top in being bad guys. You just know that they're going to get it in the end. The actor who plays the self-absorbed minister should be commended for doing a fine job with a minimal role. The pilot, and the Turbaned passenger are also worthy of mention.

The songs are OK. For once, they don't detract from the plot or pacing. I thought that the 'music video' style opening was interesting.

Bipasa's song in the middle was good. The "boy-friend sing me a song cause I'm angry at you" opening is lame, but otherwise the song is OK.

All in all a good job. A nice movie for a "Bollywood saturday afternoon" w/a cold soda and a plate of pakora.