Naam Shabana: Fim lets Taapsee down

Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam Kher

Rated: 5/10

An aspiring Baby 2, Naam Shabana takes too much time to get into the groove of international crook takeouts. And when it does get into the deep of the job, the interval is far over and there’s not much time — or energy — left to enjoy the show.

Having said that, Taapsee Pannu looks aptly volatile to be an undercover strike agent. She has the body for it. She has the kick-ass moves. She even has the expressions to carry the film on her slender but strong shoulders. What she does not sadly have is a thick enough plot.

At best, this otherwise promising film, is an attempt to bask in the glory of Baby. At worst, it is a failure in doing that. The sob story around chawl girl Shabana seems unnecessary and prolonged considering the exciting task at hand. She has interned in jail for killing her wife-beater alcoholic father, is made to lose her boyfriend in an unfriendly encounter with goons and then honed for a job that is meant to take lives — of course after she goes for the revenge kill to assuage the death of her boyfriend.

In short, by the time Akshay Kumar comes in — and vanishes, returns and vanishes again — so much time is lost that you wonder why the story had to be so wafer thin? There are no wow elements whatsoever in the chase of the drug-arms don in Kuala Lumpur, there are no surprises and there are very little thrills. Even the humour that was meant to be inserted through Anupam Kher is flat. The religion ditty too dies down as a mere mention with no follow-ups of “opening doors to the criminal world”.

Not that Taapsee does not do a good job. She is brilliant in whatever she gets to do in the film. It’s the film that fails to make the noise it did as a Baby — that despite the continuous on-the-high background score meant to stitch up the thrill gaps in the script. Overall, a film that failed to cash in on the spectrum.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 2 April, 2017