It was the last week of March this year when I got to see TAKE OFF - a real life inspired Malayalam film, giving a thoroughly satisfying experience as an exceptionally well-made brutal thriller, tackling a difficult subject.
Brilliantly woven around the real life incident of 2014, TAKE OFF is a fictional representation of those events when a big group of Indian nurses got stranded in Iraq captured by ISIS terrorist group for days, and their rescue became possible due to the one fearless nurse who kept secretly communicating with the Indian officials risking her own life.
Superbly recreating the visuals, the film truly gives you the impression of watching a World Cinema movie, remaining so close to the outstanding Iranian cinema in terms of its drama and emotional reach. Honestly I found it hard to believe that it was the directorial debut of Mahesh Narayan, coming up with such mature and polished work. Led by all admirable performances, the only drawback of the film remains its love story, taking too many cinematic liberties at times that seem to be highly improbable, especially when it’s all happening around the cold blooded ISIS terrorists.
Otherwise TAKE OFF can easily be rated as a worth appreciating 4 STAR film that is strongly recommended for all the viewers interested in such intense, realistic drama talking about World Terrorism. Made on an identical subject, it is way ahead than what we got to see in Akshay Kumar’s AIRLIFT and that should say it all as AIRLIFT itself was a more than decent survival thriller duly appreciated by the viewers.
So we had a great experience watching TAKE OFF in the theater and while walking out had only one thought in mind that if AIRLIFT can work with Akshay Kumar playing the sole-savior of all Indians in an Islamic country, then what if this realistic task of bringing back the nurses is given to Salman Khan, wherein he is assigned the mission to rescue them from Iraq as a typical, action-oriented, Hindi masala film catering to the general public.
No doubt, the thought appeared to be pretty exciting as a perfect Salman Khan film releasing on a Festival weekend. But we left the discussion right there having no idea that there were others thinking on the same lines too and a film was already in the making as the much awaited TIGER ZINDA HAI - the sequel of EK THA TIGER featuring Salman Khan as the spy.
Therefore TZH’s trailer came as a big pleasant surprise for me bringing along an interesting realization that how in our Indian Cinema we have two different kinds of visions of presenting the same plot on screen for two distinctive set of audiences living in the same country.
Where our regional language cinema can dare to showcase the subject in a highly authentic, scary manner remaining too close to reality as a survival thriller - our Hindi cinema still has to present it in an entirely different, fantasy-fiction form focusing on the ‘clap-worthy’ hero alone as a spy-adventure film.
Here the above analysis is in no way critical of our present Hindi cinema and its set approach of focusing on the entertainment quotient. But the case does establish an enlightening fact that our Indian regional language cinema and its viewers collectively are much more receptive, appreciative and supportive towards meaningful, experimental films in comparison to the Hindi filmmakers and their widespread viewership.
However, if you consider yourself among those who wish to experience the magic of both the worlds, then just begin watching the Indian Regional Language Cinema at the earliest (with English subtitles) and explore a whole new world of movies enriching your own being.
In fact, just begin with TAKE OFF and see the difference.
(Note: Please don’t search or wait for dubbed films in Hindi. All Indian Regional Language movies should be seen in their original form/language with English Subtitles, exactly as we watch the World Cinema movies in various languages (of the world) reading the text displayed at the bottom.)
Cheers!
(Note: The article was also published on UC-News Mobile App in November 2017)
