A Refreshing Change !. Review on 40528

It has been a year of changes in Bollywood. The traditional routines of (girl + boy + love + disagreeing parents) or (honest cop + mafia + love) seem to have stopped working as Bollywood begins to explore new horizons, seemingly encouraged by the success of Lagaan. December 16 is just one such example. Director Mani Shankar has ventured onto unknown hunting grounds as he tries to bring to life the concepts of modern terrorism. The story is in a way similar to ‘The Peacekeeper’ starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman but has been given Indian touches here and there. It’s a good effort and I found the movie quite interesting, a refreshing change from the social dramas. But I must admit that the special effects are quite bleak and some parts is downright silly, for example, the recording and editing of the villain’s voice to utilize it for a voice-controlled computer command {and all that using Cut and Copy option}. Nevertheless, not a bad start. Worth a watch.

The highlight of the movie is definitely the pair of Dippanita Sharma and Aditi Gowitrikar, I mean, this is a combination straight out of a teenage fantasy. Its well worth the sixty bucks just to drool over them.

The plot is basically quite complex. December 16, as most of us didn’t know, was the day Pakistan surrendered to India in the 1971 war. Still bitter over the loss, former Pakistan General Dost Khan (Gulshan Grover) vows to take revenge by setting off a Nuclear Bomb in the middle of Delhi. In his way are the intelligence team comprising Vikram, Sheeba, Johny and Vincent led by Major General Dig Vijay Singh (Danny).The actual plot and the way Dost Khan is tracked down is quite complicated to be explained in a review.

Dippanita Sharma is the find of the movie. Apart from those drop-dead looks, she can actually act and quite well too. Milind Soman too has put in a pretty good performance. Unfortunately, Aditi’s acting needs a lot of improving. But then again, with looks like that, it doesn’t really matter. The veterans Danny and Gulshan Grover are as good as ever. Another bright spot of the movie is that it has just three songs…I wish more movies were made this way.

Overall, December 16 is a unique attempt at something never done before. Hats off to the director for that. It’s a movie well worth watching.