Thousandapologies

Since the Namesake introduced me to 1947 Earth, I have been exploring some more Bollywood movies. New York is a movie filmed by an Indian director Kabir Khan, mostly filmed in Hindi, but takes place in the city that never sleeps. The movie, featuring the lovely Katrina Kaif, portrays a somewhat different vision on the world after 9/11. The movie starts when Omar, a taxi driver, is falsely accused of terrorism and interrogated by the FBI. It seems one of his college friends Samir, is suspected to be a leader of a terrorist sleeper cell in NYC. Already soon, Omar realises that the FBI has a double agenda, and probably planted the weapons on his taxi on purpose to force him to spy on his old friend. Omar, however, broke of contact with Samir just after 9/11, and gaining his former friend’s confidence will also entail meeting Samir’s Wife and Omar’s former crush, Maya. While Omar believes in Samir’s innocence, his work for the FBI reveals otherwise, and suddenly Omar has to do everything possible to stop his friend from committing a terrorist attack. As said, New York portrays a somewhat different perspective to terrorism that we see in most Hollywood movies, which makes it an interesting watch. Right after 9/11, Samir is illegally held, interrogated, and tortured by the FBI, to reveal nothing but his innocence. Free again, his plans are revenge and this leads him to the path of terrorism. While providing a different viewpoint on terrorism, especially condemning the American actions that resulted in thousands of innocent muslim men being detained without any form of process, the movie unfortunately fails to give the necessary depth to the topic. A depth that would really make its audience think about this topic. Instead, the characters remain shallow, and the movie addresses the theme quite lightly, without the necessary tension and drama to make it credible. Still it sparks some thoughts about terrorism and is fit for larger audiences. Summarising, a relaxing movie to watch on a Friday evening, that at least provides something to think about…