Lahore confidential
Introduction
It was sometime during the lockdown that I had watched an extremely thrilling espionage film called London Confidential. And with its success, Zee5 had announced another espionage film based on a book by Hussain Zaidi who had also penned London Confidential. That film was Lahore Confidential which was slated to originally release in December’20. But due to unconfirmed reports its release was pushed to February. And it is finally out today. Its trailer was promising, is the film worth your time. Do stay tuned.
Story & Screenplay
Lahore Confidential is the story of a Indian field agent deployed in Lahore for some Intel. Soon she gets entangled in a conspiracy. The story is pretty intetesting and promises to be a thrilling affair. But the screenplay is half baked. For starters, it stands at little more than an hour which makes it fast paced. But this is where the film is muddled. The pacing is not right. Certain events that needed to unfold slowly with time were just rushed through. It does not allow you to settle and go from plot point A to B at a leisurely pace. Instead it almost pushes you along that just kills the drama. The suspense is something that you can see from a mile away and when the big reveal is out, so aren’t too impressed. London Confidential was short and crisp too but it had several thrilling moments. This one has a few towards the back end but nothing really to shout about. It is just too bland. Another drawback is that because the screenplay is so fast paced, none of the characters have any depth associated with them. So there is an instant disconnect to the drama.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are pretty good, the ones featuring Urdu poetry are the highlight. I found the BGM to be too loud and off. Probably the makers were trying too hard by creating a pace in the BGM, when really the drama was falling apart. Director Kunal Kohli does a decent job but his direction left a lot to be desired.
Performances
Karishma Tanna is decent as Yukti. Richa Chaddha is decent as Ananya, a character who is far too confused to be a field agent. No fault of hers but her character really made you wonder on how she was recruited in the first place. Extremely poor characterisation. But it was Arunoday Singh as Rauf who saved the day to an extent. His personality is towering with some amazing screen presence and his dialogue delivery is on point. He is the sole reason to watch this movie.
Conclusion
Lahore Confidential is half baked and just misses the mark. Available on Zee5.