Some Comments on 'A Wednesday'
Ajit has written a short but 'to the point' review of this film. It is certainly a well made and 'tightly knit' film with no lose ends, and the pace keeps us expectant and bound to our seats right till the end. Naseeruddin and Kher also are rather realistic in their performances, and Naseeruddin's common man is probably a new addition to the variety of 'types' in the Indian cinema. The film brings out strongly the reaction of common people to the rather unbridled and tragically painful acts of violence and terrorism in India. The main protagonist in the story is able to use his rather 'fearsome skills' and over-reaching imagination, very unexpected for the 'actual common man', or let us say for the prototype of the common man to keep the entire police force on tenterhooks. Naseeruddin's 'common man', in the film hits back at three selected 'bad guys', that is terrorist, who although cooling their heels in jail are, as happens in our complex judicial system, able to keep the police frustrated and unable to drive home charges against them.
But in spite of his simple exterior the common man in A Wednesday turns out to be another barely camouflaged and rather hackneyed Amitabh Bachan in disguise, who single handedly and rather successfully, takes up the unfulfilled challenge facing the top brass of the Mumbai police force. In the process, the police department and the chief minister turn out to be the 'usual' inefficient but well meaning nincompoops, picking up the dropped clues, at the heels of our 'always-one-step-ahead' super-common man.
From their responses, this film seemed to have acted as a balm to many in the educated and professional sections, who understandably want to express their ire at the mindless violence disrupting our social and national fabric and the helplessness of our security agencies to put a stop to it. However, under its 'well stitched and fitting dress' A Wednesday turns out to be another formula film, which in spite of depicting a rather secularised police force, is not able to keep away from the vitiating practice of identifying 'a single community' as the villain in this sordid scenario.
