NEERJA: This is a Masterpiece, a movie that's going to be kept in the league of classics. It seldom happens that a Director achieves such a finesse in his first major project but Ram Madhvani, who has been directing award winning commercials for over twenty years, defies all conventions giving us an amazing experience that reminds us of the types of Dark Knight. The best thing Ram did is to keep the dialogs in each characters' native language that gives it a feel of real time cinema. The background music creates an ambiance of tension making you feel traveling in the same plane that got hijacked in Karachi in 1986. The cinematography is so real as if you are watching the events happen live. The dark shades ensure that colors don't snatch away the tense mood throughout. The sets, the interiors, the costumes, the make up are so real to recreate the time when this event happened. And above all, it is powerful performances by everyone in the frame that keeps you holding your breathe, that keeps you getting lumps in your throat, that makes your heart beat fast and at some times makes your eyes wet. Sonam Kapoor has unexpectedly given her not only career best performance but also one of the best Bollywood has witnessed over the years. Her body language, costumes, make up, expressions, and slang all look perfectly aligned with what could be expected out of the protagonist. Shabnana Azmi as her mother nails it down with her speech in the end. She proves that art is age defiant and she still can give audience the goosebumps. And the character that despite carrying no stardom yet succeeded to leave a strong impression on my mind is that of the anger dominated terrorist who reminded me about the Joker in The Dark Knight. His intense performance really deserves an applause for it is he who succeeds in making audience feel the terror the victims might have felt in reality. Too good a movie with perfection delivered in every aspect. No way it could have been even a little better than what it is. This one is going to stay a long time in my mind. DEFINITELY A MOVIE NOT TO BE MISSED FOR ANY REASON. RATING 10/10
