Tere Bin Laden

Director: Abhishek Sharma

Actors: Ali Zafar, Barry John, Chirag Vohra, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Piyush Mishra, Rahul Singh, Seema Bhargava, Sugandha Garg, Pradhuman Singh, Chinmay Mandlekar

Karachi has its own version of yuppies, I am told. They call them ‘burgs’ after, I guess, the McDonald’s burgers. These rich young, western in their aspirations and outfit, forever live the American dream, are often scoffed at for their twisted orientation.

The hero here is one such burg. And for a rare Indian film, his story is actually set in Karachi – Mumbai’s seaport equivalent of Pakistan. A stock-shot of the Jinnah International Airport, I suppose, counts for the location’s only real evidence. They do get the lehzaa (local manner of speech) right, I guess. The boy (Ali Zafar) works for a rundown cable TV station – Danka TV – that beams out of a decrepit building terrace. He could do with a better career in journalism in the US, but can’t afford it.

Literally a random cockfight he’s meant to cover for his channel, he figures, can bring him closer to the cockpit over Karachi. He realises a ‘Kukkad Paadshah’ (Chicken King) whose footage he’s captured on the show - with some tweaks in voice, dress and makeup - could pass off for the dreaded Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man on earth.

Osama’s videos fetch great money in the media mart. His own station would be fooled to oblige if they saw a tape of a lookalike making threats against Americans in Arabic. This plan actually turns out to be a success. What follows as what precedes, is truly hilarious.

Tere Bin LadenThe news makes global headlines. Americans under Bush, true to style, launch an Operation Kickass in Afghanistan. Their prime targets remain but the wildlife of the arid region: “Gadhe aur kachhad shaheed ho rahe hain (Donkeys are mules alone are getting martyred!).” The show’s unsuspecting ‘bakra’ himself, the Osama double, a demented poultry farmer (Pradhuman Singh, inspired casting) can make sense of little, besides fear of his own face.

This ingenious, mockumentary style script (Abhishek Sharma) stupendously lets itself go off in all directions on a wild flight of imagination. Only songs seem needlessly borrowed from that Kailash Kher number ‘Chak De Phatte’ (Khosla Ka Ghosla).

Osama as a human specimen should appear beyond limits of creative fiction. Subsequent generations, I suspect, will build a mythology around this caveman who tore off mighty America’s middle fingers, turned global politics upside down, destroyed lives and a trillion dollars, and yet no one could find him. The filmmakers reckon he actually doesn’t exist!

And yet, by the AK47, beneath that white turban and over that salted beard lurks the century’s deadliest story. That a film can so convincingly make light of an unbearable tragedy is its astounding comic achievement. What more low-down do you want: Just go ahead and load up on the guilt-free laughs!

Hear this. A small-time Pakistani reporter dreams of a bite from Big Apple. So what does he do? He sends a tape with an Osama lookalike threatening mayhem in the US. "Tere Bin Laden" is one of those whacked-out satires that sounds far funnier in theory than it finally is on screen. For no fault of the lead actor, one might add.

Ali Zafar's comic timing could put some of our desi Khans to shame. Ali is a young actor with considerable screen presence. What's more, he seems to secrete a sharp sense of enjoyment when confronted by the outrageous. This is high-wit low-budget comedy, and it shows. The gags and one-liners involving the preparation to put the fake Osama in the line of fire are pungent parody in principle. But the film's meagre budget muffles the mirth.

Finally it's all about placing cameras in front of world maps rather than going out there to capture those parts of the world that the satire takes into its tongue-in-cheek sweep. There are some stinging swipes taken at the Americanization of the Asian dream, and the craze for young urbanites in this part of the world to make good their escape at any cost.

Debutant director Abhishek Sharma never loses hold of the satirical mould. The sense of fun is uppermost in the script, though quite frequently the humour gets derailed by studio-induced props worthy more of a television sitcom on burger-mania rather than a film whose satirical take on terrorism touches the nerve-centres of our very existence. That Sharma is actually able to pull off a parody that combines poultry jokes with globally-significant comments is no small achievement.

The actors are in the mood for some serious fun here. While Ali Zafar sparkles in the embrace of the script's feisty wit, Pradhuman Singh as an Osama lookalike too seems to have fun biting the bait. His scenes with a beautician (Sugandha Garg), who touches up his face are deliciously suggestive. While "Tere Bin Laden" is many notches above the run-of-the-mill satire, as a spectral swipe at Osama-phobia, Bush-bashing and global terrorism, this one doesn't quite make the cut.

New Delhi, July 16 -- Tere Bin Laden Genre: Comedy Director: Abhishek Sharma Cast: Ali Zafar, Pradhuman Singh, Sugandha Garg Synopsis: The film is a comedy about an ambitious young news reporter from Pakistan desperate to migrate to the US. However, his visa keeps getting rejected. One day, he comes across an Osama Bin Laden look-alike. Ali hatches a scheme to produce a fake Osama video and sell it to news channels as breaking news. But there're serious ramifications as the White House gets involved and Ali gets into trouble.

Udaan Genre: Drama Director: Vikramaditya Motwane Cast: Rajat Barmecha, Ronit Roy Synopsis: After being abandoned for eight straight years in boarding school, Rohan returns to the small industrial town of Jamshedpur and finds himself closeted with an authoritarian father and a younger half brother. Forced to work in his father's steel factory and study engineering against his wishes, he tries to forge his own life out of his given circumstances and pursue his dream of being a writer.

Inception Genre: Action Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page Synopsis: Dom Cobb is a skilled thief who steals valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage as well as an international fugitive.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Genre: Action Director: Jon Turteltaub Cast: Nicolas Cage, Monica Bellucci Synopsis: Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Balthazar can't do it alone, so he recruits a seemingly average guy with huge potential as his protege.