The Film: Qayamat
Producer: Pammi Baweja
Director: Harry Baweja
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sunil Shetty, Sanjay Kapoor, Neha Dhupia & Isha Koppikar
Lyrics: Sameer
Music: Nadeem-Shravan and Ranjit Barot
Audio on: Venus
RATING: 5/10 (India) - 3.5/10 (Overseas)

Baweja Movies Pvt. Ltd.'s Qayamat (A) is the story of two terrorists who hold Bombay city to ransom. With the help of a scheming scientist, they smuggle out deadly virus from a laboratory and plant it in missles which they threaten to let loose to wreak havoc on the city's residents. They blackmail the government and demand crores of rupees, besides free passage to Pakistan, in return for their thwarting the evil plan. The two terrorists and their group are operating from a vacant jail on the terrace of which are the loaded missiles. They have held a tourist group captive in the jail as additional security.

The government has very little time to battle the terrorists. On the job is a CBI officer and a scientist who can diffuse the missiles. To reach the prison, they are left with no alternative but to take the help of a dreaded criminal who is serving his term of life imprisonment in another jail. This convict has an axe to grind with the terrorist duo and, therefore, agrees to help the government.

On the mission to overpower the terrorists and save the captive persons as also the city from destruction, the government's team faces a lot of hurdles. The CBI officer and his lieutenants are killed in no time. The only survivours are the dreaded criminal and the scientist who knows nothing about guns and bullets, leave alone terrorists. How the two accomplish the tough mission forms the climax of the film which has been heavily inspired from the Hollywood film, The Rock.

The film has its plus and minus points. First, the pluses. It abounds in action and there's also a fair dose of anti-Pakistan dialogue to appeal to the masses. There's a reasonable amount of sex to satiate the voyeuristic audience too. Music, though not going with the mood of the film, has a lot of lilt and melody.

On the negative side are: the whole drama looks too simplistic for public consumption and digestion. Terms like missiles, virus, thousand crores of rupees etc. are used so casually that the drama loses its seriousness. The terrorists are shown to be cracking complex computer codes in a jiffy, once again robbing the film of its seriousness. Further, the two terrorists, played by Sanjay Kapoor and Arbaaz Khan, look unbelievable as they are too young and inexperienced to play dreaded criminals who can hold an entire city to ransom. This is not to undermine their acting because they've done well but the demand of the characters were names like Amrish Puri and Danny Denzongpa.

While Pathik Vats' dialogue are good and even clapworthy at places, Harry Baweja and Suparn Verma's screenplay is not half as good.

Ajay Devgan does a splendid job as the dreaded criminal who comes to the government's rescue. He has minimum dialogue to mouth (something which a section of the audience would not like) but his performance is not found even one bit lacking because of that. In one word, he is excellent. Sunil Shetty plays the CBI officer with restraint and leaves a good impression in his dying scene. His couple of anti-Pakistan dialogue will draw applause from the audience.

Sanjay Kapoor and Arbaaz Khan have played the terrorists with ease and are impressive, but they often look more like small-time comic thieves rather than terrorists (no fault of theirs, it's the characterisations). Neha Dhupia makes a very average debut. She looks ordinary and her performance is not even that! Her dubbing (by a dubbing artiste) leaves something to be desired. Riya Sen is cute as the spoilt brat. She exposes her anatomy freely, looks pretty and acts well. Her sexy song is good. Isha Koppikar is effective as the vamp and, like Riya, she too adds oomph. Her dance on the title song has sex appeal.

Aashish Chowdhry is very cute in his maiden big screen appearance. He plays the scientist who has to pick up the gun in self-defence, in a very endearing manner. The guy has a bright future. Ayub Khan leaves a mark in a brief role. Chunkey Panday irritates with his over-acting. Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Anjan Srivastava and Govind Namdev lend good support. Achyut Potdar, Deep Dhillon, Tej Sapru and the others are fair.

Harry Baweja's direction is at least better than his scripting. He has taken care to put all masala for the masses but has not kept much for the ladies and families who would, therefore, hardly patronise the film. Nadeem Shravan's music is very good but too many songs coming in quick succession of one another in the first half and that too, without proper situations, disturbs the mass viewers. 'Woh ladki bahut yaad aati hai', 'Aitbaar nahin karna', 'Dil chura liya' and the title track are the best numbers musically. Sanjay F. Gupta's camerawork is lovely. Allan Amin's action and stunts are good, except for the scenes in which the characters are suspended mid-air for far too long - which looks comical when it should actually take the viewers' breath away. Production and other technical values are of a good standard.

On the whole, Qayamat should prove to be a safe bet, fetching part or whole commission in the various territories, on the strength of mass patronage and the extraordinary start it has taken in every station of the country. Although a long run is ruled out because of intrinsic faults and too simplistic a treatment of a serious subject, it will keep its distributors smiling, more so in circuits of Northern India. Business in multiplexes will be ordinary while that in small centres will be extraordinary. Business in Overseas will be ordinary.