SPOILER FREE WITH SPOILER WARNING
Been a great fan of Neeraj Pandey movies.A Wednesday, Special 26, Baby are brilliant flicks.Although was disappointed when he made M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and Rustom.
Naam Shabana is a Hindi movie directed by Shivam Nair, co-produced by Neeraj Pandey starring Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam Kher and Prithviraj Sukumaran.
The movie is a spin-off prequel to the film Baby released in 2015. The movie shows the back story of Shabana and how she eventually gains a position in the Anti-terrorist squad.The first half is more about Shabana's background and her vengeance. The second half puts Shabana on a mission by by Manoj Bajpayee. She’s given the task to combat an international mafia don.
The biggest irony of the film is that it is supposed to show women power but there is so much of patronizing happening in between the lines. Akshay Kumar though in a cameo role is glorified and in fact clearly shown as an upper hand in a couple of instances. The film lacks pace. It hardly has any interesting moments to make it a racy thriller like Baby. Though Tapsee’s martial arts work can be appreciated.
Manoj Bajpayee is restricted but he makes his presence felt, as usual. Malayalam star Prithviraj Sukumaran plays the antagonist in the later part of the film and sadly, he fails to deliver. He has always chosen bad films in Hindi, be it Aiyya, Aurangazeb and now this film.
Also the film defies logic when knowing that Ajay is capable of doing the job, what was the need of training Shabana and deploying her.
The film is predictable in many ways too.Some dialogues were written to carry a punch but turn out to be disgracefu.
With such a predictable screenplay and forceful women empowerment, the movie only turns out to be a pretty average.
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