Movie Review: Black Friday

Movie Review of Black Friday (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400234/)

This movie is a docu-drama on the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai carried out by Muslim mobsters allegedly in retaliation of the riots in Mumbai where Hindu mobs targeted the Muslims (which followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu crowds)

Starting with the brilliantly simple statement of Mahatma Gandhi: ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’, this movie so reminded me of United 93, the docu drama of the 2 planes crashing into the World Trade Centre on 9/11. Its not as crisp as the Hollywood movie but is trendsetting in the Bollywood context.

Although almost universally praised (including many Western film critics), surprisingly I found nobody really mentioned the points I am going to cover below. So here goes

Some aspects of the scenes/script were quite weak

• The policeman advising one of the main investigators not to open the scooter storage compartment since that can trigger the bomb. Duh!!!! And that too when they are actually searching for explosives
• Following an initial lead, the police vans rather overtly arriving in full force down a crowded Mahim Dargah Road to follow a lead at the residence of Rubina Memon. Lots of advance notice for the bomber to make a getaway. I guess to provide a level playing field for all parties.
• The policeman raiding the Rubina Memon house not using gloves and doing a rather amateurish job at raiding, displaying a surprising lack of urgency
• Tiger Memon’s accountant lifting an obviously empty suitcase oh so easily onto the airport trolley.
• The rather comic drama of the capture of Imtiaz and the inept (does that surprise me J?) police. Everybody just seems to have endless reserves of energy in running………and just letting Imtiaz escape
• The Imtiaz character being forced to imprint his bloodied thumb print on presumably a confession. Would it take a very stupid judge not to suspect something fishy?
• The discovery of the RDX sacks among fishstock: a badly made scene
• And I do have a slight crib about the indipop sounding final song accompanying the credits. It seemed to rather trivialize the film, the film seemed to be cruising along at a certain competency of integrity and then this song seemed to reduce it to something totally amateurish

Having got the above points out of the way, I would like to concentrate on the positives of the film, which are many. The scenes standing out in my memory from this film

• The chilling aura generated by Pavan Varma (portraying Tiger Memon)
• The reenactment of the bombings at Stock Market and in the BEST bus
• The rather authentic location shoots throughout India, mostly Mumbai
• Tiger Memon’s short speech drawing Badshah into the plot, a marvelous scene

The small characters who make the movie memorable

• The lady outside Rubina Memon’s house questioned on her whereabouts
• The accountant / manager of Tiger Memon who cracks open
• The Imtiaz character
• Dangale the interrogator

The movie is a must-watch and possibly a collectors-item

And finally I must dedicate this first film review on my blog to http://www.filmigeek.net/ whose regular movie reviews are a treat to read. I hope to draw inspiration from you