Blank Movie Review

Before Tara Sutaria and Ananya Panday make their much awaited debuts next week in STUDENT OF THE YEAR, there is one more newbie who will step into the world of Bollywood – Karan Kapadia with BLANK. The film and the actor both have been talked about since Karan is the nephew of Dimple Kapadia. Even Akshay Kumar has lent his support to the film by agreeing to do a promotional song. With the marketing aspect being taken care of, the questions that arise now are – Is BLANK well-made worth all the hype and buzz? Or does it fail to strike a chord with the audience? Let’s analyse!

Movie Review Blank

BLANK is the story of a terrorist who is a ‘living explosive’. Hanif (Karan Kapadia) is a part of a terrorist group called Tehreer Al-Hind, headed by Maqsood (Jameel Khan). He has arrived in Mumbai along with other terrorists with a deadly plan – to set off 24 bomb blasts, each by a terrorist. However, on the D-Day, he meets with a road accident. He faints and is taken to the hospital. The staff there is astonished to see a timed bomb fixed to his body! Immediately, the ATS chief S S Dewan (Sunny Deol) is informed. The doctors are unable to detach the bomb from his body as its connected with his heart. Once Hanif regains consciousness, another obstacle emerges in front of Dewan. Hanif has lost his memory due to the accident and doesn’t remember anything at all about the bomb or where he has come from. Dewan’s juniors, Husna (Ishita Dutta) and Rohit (Karanvir Sharma) meanwhile nab another suicide bomber, Farukh. Realizing that the police now has the second terrorist to extract information from, Dewan’s senior Aruna Gupta orders that Hanif be taken to the outskirts of the city and be killed. Dewan accompanies the party that takes Hanif to a salt pan. On the other hand, Husna successfully locates Hanif’s residence where she finds the blueprint of the bomb attached to Hanif’s body. She realizes that killing Hanif will trigger other 24 bombs in the city and she quickly informs Dewan of the same. At this moment, a team of terrorists arrive at the salt pans and attacks the cops. They also take away Hanif. What happens next forms the rest of the film.

Pranav Adarsh’s story is average. His screenplay is decent but also has its loose ends. Some small developments are also skipped which is bewildering. After all, the film’s duration is quite less and 4-5 minutes of extra scenes wouldn’t have harmed the film. Behzad Khambata’s dialogues are simple and work well.

Behzad Khambata’s direction is quite good, also considering that it’s his directorial debut. He has some handled some scenes deftly.

BLANK is just 111 minutes long but it seems quite lengthy. The film starts off well at a crucial moment and then goes on a flashback mode. The first half doesn’t go on a high but is decent and sans complaints. Hanif’s fight sequence in the hospital is nicely done. His interrogation sequence gets a bit dragging but keeps viewers engaged. The intermission point however is the best part of the film. Three developments are happening simultaneously here – Husna is searching Hanif’s house, Rohit is in search of the godown whereas Dewan is about to execute Hanif. And all these episodes are well directed. Post-interval however, the film goes downhill. A track is needlessly added about Hanif’s father during the 2002 riots. Remove this bit and the film still would have made sense. The action scene in the tourist office is quite long and well executed. The climax is quite unexpected and unpredictable. That is a plus but at the same time, logic goes out of the window. The masses especially would find it difficult to understand the developments regarding the bomb attached on Hanif’s body.