DJ Munks.com

Adi Chopra is back with a bang with New York after the super hit Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi last year. He is not only producing but has also written the story of New York. This time he puts his faith in director Kabir Khan’s work who’s last movie was an average – Kabul Express.

Yash Raj Films has a reputation to maintain… & doing that is not easy in the hugely diverse Bollywood industry. When the first few details of New York came out we thought it will be a fun.. college buddies type romantic movie based in New York. Perfectly sane to expect that as romance is the natural preferred flavour of Yash Raj Films.. and the fun element is the immediate guess with a cast of John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh & Irrfan Khan. Then the posters, trailers & interviews came out highlighting the missing twin towers that got us wondering if it is an action movie about 9/11.

And now.. finally after 2 months of Bollywood strike the movie comes out with a totally different angle ready to surprise us all.. It’s not about 9/11 per say.. it’s not a fun romantic movie.. Its a serious drama about the after effects of 9/11 and their influence on 3 young Muslim life’s.

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PLOT

NEW YORK opens with Neil Nitin Mukesh [Omar] being detained by the FBI for moving guns & bombs in a cab owned by his company. He has no idea what is going on as he is totally innocent & is being framed by the FBI officer Irrfan Khan [Roshan] who wants him to go undercover & get back close with his old time college buddy John Abraham [Samir] who is a terror suspect. Omar cant believe this & the movie hits flashback to his college days when he had come from India & met his classmates Samir & Maya [Katrina Kaif]. They were really good friends & it all lead to a love triangle.

This is where you would think this is a romantic movie.. but.. eh ah.. Nope.. it is not. Omar just walks away from Samir & Maya on 9/11 while they get married. 7 years later he is now back in their life as an undercover FBI agent to prove that he & his friend Samir are both totally innocent. He must now stay with them in their house and discover the truth about what happened to Samir post 9/11 that led him down the wrong way. He must gain Samir & FBI’s trust & fight time before it is too late to stop Samir from doing another 9/11 level disaster.

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REVIEW

Sounds interesting doesn’t it..?? Well it is..

It is not too creative but is realistic. New York doesn’t highlight the fun element of the city that it is most commonly know for.. but the misery’s of the selected few who were tortured post 9/11 on grounds of their name, colour & race. Its the story of 3 young Muslim students caught in the after effects of 9/11 with the US governments desperation to show that they are doing something to stop such a thing from happening again in the future. It also shows the good aspects of Muslim immigrants like Irrfan Khan who want to make a change & stop all Muslims being categorised as terrorists. Neil helps him in this endeavour to prove a point that it is wrong to judge or categorise people of specific communities based on their race. What makes people go the wrong way are their circumstances & the decisions they make.. not their religion.

The movie has a good message no doubt.. but the best part is that it comes from a very young cast who deliver the message very well with some very mature performances. The script is absolutely focused & to the point with no twists & turns & beating around the bush in typical Bollywood style.

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MOVIE

- Very good performances by John, Neil, Katrina & Irrfan. I finally have some respect of John & Katrina as actors!

- Good tight script with a straight forward story line & no confusions or use of unnecessary casts to fill up scenes.

- Has a good message to the story where there is no villain. The enemy is time & circumstances.

- Direction is accurate where Kabir Khan looks in full control to get what he wants from the script & his actors.

- Although based in New York the film is not flashy at all and must have been shot with a very small budget.

- The characters are well defined in the story & the focus on each character is perfect in proportions.

- Thus Aditya Chopra does a fab job with story writing & production. Hats off to him & Sandeep Srivastava for the screenplay.

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LOWLIGHTS OF THE MOVIE

- For a powerful subject & script like this, the dialogues are absolutely boring & non-dynamic.

- The songs are a total waste on the OST. Hai Junoon is the only decent song.

- Background score & sound design of the movie are purely average.

- Cinematography & locations are purely average for a shoot based in New York. It could have might as well be shot in a designed studio set.

- Few downsides in the story ending that I don’t agree with & consider them to be hurried script decisions. For example.. I don’t see why a  wife who knows her husband is involved in terrorist work will not try to talk him out of it for their child’s sake. Also, I don’t see why a devoted family man will make a wrong decision to end it all for his family.

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FINAL WORD

Very Good – 7.5/10.

Except the above few technical sides of film making, New York is handsome movie package. UK audiences should be able to relate to this story in many ways because it is very similar to things that happened here post the London tube bombings. The movie is realistic and brings out the human side of a deep agenda of harmless innocents being dragged into criminal investigations because of the wrong doings of certain inhuman people in the community. It does not show the law & order agencies to be at fault for creating terrorists out of innocent people.. but how wrong individual decisions of people exploited by the system leads to revengeful acts.

New York is a good watch. It is modern mature cinema for the thinking audience & thus a must watch for all generations.

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