Mission Istaanbul: Darr Ke Aagey Jeet Hai!

After "Shootout At Lokhandwala", I was expecting another decent outing from the director Apoorva Lakia. Also, that the movie was shot in Istaanbul made me eager as I hadn't seen any other Indian movie that I can recall which had been shot so extensively in Turkey.

But like it often happens I was disappointed for judging a book (in this case movie) by its cover. A movie on a serious issue like terrorism cannot, just cannot start off with 2 songs in the first 15-20 minutes. That for me killed it. Then some stunts that looked more like an advertisement for a Cola company, made you wonder if actors like Zayed have any future in Bollywood. Even Viveik was way over the top. Shriya Saran has been wasted. The only saving grace is the bad guy-Niketan Dheer. He has to be the smartest villain ever seen in an Indian movie.I was actually rooting for the bad guy!!! Avoid this movie about an Indian Journalist (played by Zayed) getting a job in a Turkish news channel (al-Johara) which is a direct mouthpiece or world's most wanted terrorists. And then how Zayed gets entangled in a web of lies and conspiracies.

this movie is just waste of time.i am living in Istanbul for 30 years and i never heard a name like "Rizwan" (in the movie,that Turkish commando called Rizwan)...and we don't have "khan" added to our names since 800 years.i don't know what s the origin of name Rizwan,but absolutely not Turkish.if you are making a movie,you must have some knowledge about what you are doing.You must show some respect to your work and add some more effort to make it better.at least person names have to fit to country.in the movie title "Istanbul" called as "Istaanbul".even it s not correct,i can say "it s OK.i m sure he has a reason to name movie like that.i believe he knows correctly what the name of city." but when i watch movie i really doubt that he even knows the city name...starting with names,unfortunately nothing fits to Turkey or Istanbul.everything in movie is just imaginary but nothing else.

The story revolves around a talented Indian journalist who lands up in Turkey and a commando on the trail of terrorists. Set predominantly in Istanbul at rubbish locations and it's really hard to tell that it is set in another place other than India. The screenplay is bad and it is about 2 hours and it felt like a 3 hour movie but the last 15 minutes saved the whole film. The casting may not have the top actors in the lead roles but they all acted quite well and it has to be Zayed Khan's best role to date, if he works hard then he can do a good job. He acted well after the bad performance in the garbage movies Cash & Speed. Vivek Oberoi has a very different look e.g. long hair and a darker tone which did suit his character. The film is directed by Apoorva Lakhia who also made Ek Ajnabee & Shootout at Lokhandwala, both of them were good but Mission Istanbul could have been better in so many ways. The soundtrack has different kind of songs for everyone. The best songs are Jo Gumshuda which is very romantic and Mission Mission which rocks. It is the first Bollywood film shot in Turkey but it could have been shot in different and better locations instead of the same place over and over again.

It's almost perplexing to comprehend how awful this movie is. With such a wealthy budget/producers, you would want to know who deserves such a lack of credibility. It has definitely become one of those "Oh wow this movie is so bad, its good". The movie is simply that awful that you will be forced to laugh at the random and obscure scenes. The action scenes are so cynical, you just might feel so much better calling it some sort of spoof movie. My cheeks and jawbone never hurt so much from laughter in quite some time. It isn't really the actors fault for looking even worse at doing what they do. The scriptwriters were a joke, I felt like kidnapped a couple Indian soap opera show script writers from Zee TV and used them to write their script. Vivek Oberoi probably had the best role in the film, hands down. The other actors were simply a joke.

All in all, a must see for a good time!(Read everything)

Did Apoorva Lakhia who directed the reasonable 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' really direct this turkey? It's shocking to see a film where almost nothing works. The concept was good - use current world events to make a thriller on international terrorism. Alas, the execution is terrible. The fight scenes are ludicrous (did anyone even try?) and the acting mostly abysmal. Vivek Oberoi maintains a perpetual smirk on his face. It seems all the money was wasted on boring item-numbers. It feels like and is a complete waste of time. A film to be shunned and forgotten.

Overall 1/10