For once, I agree with the paid movie critics!. Review on Red Alert

News stories about Maoist attacks and Naxalite movement abound in our media these days. With so many of our jawans dying, unfortunately having to fight enemies from within, it is an issue that needs to be given a lot of thought. It was inevitable that movie makers and directors would get excited by the potential this problemhas to make a good movie. One such director (Ananth Mahadevan), with a dubious record of movie making, got excited by the subject and decided he wanted to get serious and make an acclaim- worthy film..so he comes up with this.....

Plot:

Narasimha (Suniel Shetty), a poor person of some sort in Andhra Pradesh, with a glamourous looking wife (Bhagyashree) and two faceless school going children, decides to cook for his living and unfortunately gets an assignment to take food to a naxal camp. He gets caught in a crossfire between the police and the naxals, and ends up working for the naxals. The police kill some naxals, the naxals arrange a shoot out at a police station...where they find an obviously violated woman (Sameera Reddy) who they rescue and train to become one of them. We are introduced to the naxals...the obnoxious and pontificating leader (Ashish Vidyarthi), the crusty on the outside, but heart of gold female commander (Seema Biswas), the tough and aggressive second in line female commander (!) (Ayesha Dharker), the Mao/Lenin reading commander (dont know the name of the actor!)...etc etc. There are endless speeches about why Naxalism exists, numerous shots of pathetic looking Narasimha, bushy eye browed Sameera Reddy trying to look like a victim, and then......i fell asleep post this point in the story, so I dont have anything more to say regarding the plot!

My Take:

There was a movie made in the 1980's called "Kamala" by Jag Mundhra, which was highly controversial as the director was accused (and justifiably so) of exploiting the very real issue of domestic slavery and using sex to sell his movie...with the message getting lost in cheap titillation. In Anant Mahadevan, we have a Jag Mundhra style director, who has taken the very serious issue of maoism/naxalism and made such a bad movie, that one ends up laughing at the whole issue..even though the reality is anything but laughable.

I am ambivalent about censorship of cinema for adult content, but I do believe censors should take action against truly bad movies made about topical issues. From the first hour, which is all I was able to sit through, it appears that naxals are emotion-less, vengeful, inexplicable heroes(with Ashish Vidyarthi painfully trying to explain their rationale to a hapless journalist!), that police men are all violent irrational beasts, that all women are potential victims who can only escape their fate by holding a gun in their hands, oh..and the most annoying stereo typing of all..that all naxals have to speak painfully stilted hyderabadi hindi!

You might argue that I only watched the first hour and that the movie justifies some of its bias later...but believe me, the movie is so stilted, the pace so sluggish,and the acting so bad that the average movie goer like me cannot sit through the entire movie! Suniel Shetty is laughable and unconvincing as a supposed rural, victim of circumstances, hero. Seema Biswas is done in by the strangely accented hyderbadi hindi she is forced to speak, Sameera Reddy is all bushy eye brows and no acting, Ashish Vidyarthi is just spouting supposed naxal jargon without any conviction..and poor, poor Ayesha Dharker..how did she fall into this mess from a highly acclaimed performance in the Terrorist??!!!

Do not watch Red Alert is my recommendation. Instead, watch "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", "Hazaar Chaurasi ki maa", if you want good movies with Naxalism as a backdrop, read intelligent articles/blogs about Naxalism if you want to know more....but do not look to "Red Alert" to either inform or entertain.