Kurbaan’s roll-call is impressive: Real-life lovers Saif and Kareena are the stars of this love story with bloody smudges; It’s from the House of Karan Johar — his money and his story; The dialogues are by Anurag Kashyap & Co. So I’m wondering if part of my deep disappointment has something to do with the hype and the names associated with it. Perhaps.
Kurbaan is the worst kind of I-wanna-be-Hollywood film. Its doodads, stars, locations, camera work and extras are high-end. But the idiocy of its story (put together with chunks from Fanna, New York and Khuda Ki Liye), the jumpy plot, inconsistent characters, shoddy acting and inept direction are entirely B-grade Bollywood. Above all, it lacks an emotional core and is quite boring, quite often.
Kurbaan begins in Delhi where Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) is a psychology professor (used to teach in New York, but father’s heart attack...). She’s rather lovely in crinkle ghera skirts, silver earrings and thick eyeliner. Ehsaan Khan (Saif Ali Khan), a temp professor, courts her, they marry and move to New York where Ehsaan teaches Islam, the West and terror. All this, by the way, is taking place post 9/11.
Avantika and Ehsaan rent a house in a neighbourhood where we meet Bhai Jaan (Om Puri), Aapa (Kirron Kher) and her oye-lalle-di-jaan Pathani accent. Here men are stern, women in hijab and gender segregation on auto-pilot.
In New York we also meet Rehana (Dia Mirza), a TV reporter, and her war-correspondent boyfriend Riyaaz Masood (Vivek Oberoi), who has a curious accent. Avantika gets pregnant, eavesdrops on plan of blowing up a plane and Ehsaan the terrorist is out of the closet. Avantika can’t call the police because her father’s life is threatened, but leaves a message for Rehana, asking her not to board the plane. But...
Ehsaan doesn’t bother to explain himself and Avantika deals with a plane-blasting husband by going into a sulk. Riyaaz gets Avantika’s bomb-in-plane massage, decides not to inform the police and infiltrates Ehsaan’s terror group pretty easily. Ehsaan, meanwhile, has been planning more blasts, shooting at cops and dashing home with a bullet in his shoulder. Bleeding Saif, suturing activity. Compelling stuff.
Bombs go off, a jihadi is torn between love of wife, unborn child and blowing up commuters. Finally, the audience is sent off with a life-altering lesson: if handing a ticking bomb and pressed for time, never cut the red wire.
Few things work in Kurbaan. Kareena and Saif have thanda chemistry. When they lock lips it’s as if a married couple is playacting their first date, first kiss. And when she sheds her top and bra — only to get to the maps of the blast sites — it’s arty but soulless. The film takes on the hyphenated America-oil-Iraq-WMDs-terror issue, and though it sees both America and terrorists as victims and perpetrators, it is confused and wimpy. In one scene, for example, Riyaaz, to convincingly prove to Ehsaan that he loathes America, talks about Iraq, oil, Afghanistan, WMDs. An American asks, “If Muslims like you feel that way about our country, why don’t you get out of it?” Riyaaz replies, “We will. As soon as you get out of ours.” This is the film’s nicest scene, and perhaps the idea around which Kurbaan was meant to rally. But the movie disowns this sentiment by putting it in the mouth of a revenge-seeking lover who is saying this only to wheedle his way into a terror group.
On the other hand is Avantika — a terror victim who wants to save other innocent victims. But she is limp and her reactions vague.
The mess that’s made of the main characters is appalling. They are set up to do certain things, but none deliver. Kurbaan’s plot takes irrational twists and liberties that make you cringe. And the way the terror network functions, Osama won’t hire them to break a boiled egg.
Perhaps, Karan Johar has presented this muddle as a precursor to My Name Is Khan. Perhaps, Kurbaan’s confusion is by design, only to be sorted out in a month or two.