Wazir, Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar make their move

Whatever you do don't miss the first ten minutes of Wazir, all the elements of a really top thriller are present; fear, trepidation and sadness mingle with each other in an unrelenting fashion. 

Against the refrain of the soulful Tere Bin, Tere Bin the main protagonists; a happy family whose lives change in an instant are rapidly established. Everything moves at breakneck speed. Hearts are broken, enemies made, relationships torn apart, it is eyes glued to the screen stuff, and although the plot becomes telegraphed and somewhat predictable from this point onward, one dare not take ones eyes off it for fear of missing out on a crucial twist. And there are a good few.

What Wazir lacks to make it an outstanding movie, is an edginess. That nervous trepidation that one associates with the cut and thrust of chess, and by that I don't mean blood and gore, but shock and awe. 

Chess is well suited to shock and awe, on the surface it looks civilized, but in reality it is brutal. Think about how every piece meets its fate, the Knight is knocked over, the Bishop succumbs, Pawns are sacrificed and the winner is the one who corners his opponents King, leaving him with no chance to escape, so there is brutality to it, and that brutality is mostly psychological. 
The best example of it is in the first Harry Potter movie, Philosopher's Stone where it is brilliantly demonstrated in the game of Wizards chess.

To be fair, most of it is this evident here, but to suit Bollywood's sensibilities the plot plays more to the heart than to the mind, and in the thriller genre, the filmmaker who manages to lay claim to the ownership of the hearts and the minds of the audience, is the one who achieves greatness. 

Director Bejoy Nambiar gives it his best shot, not only because he has tried something different but because the performances, background score, the songs, editing, camerawork and especially the action sequences are truly top notch. The only question is how differently might it have turned out had he challenged Vidhu Vinod Chopra and co-writer Abhijat Joshi, to reconsider certain aspects of the script.  

About the performances; Farhan Akhtar's role is another exercise in intensity, exactly what we've come to expect from an actor who takes to all his parts in that manner. Being pitted alongside one of the greats of Indian cinema in Amitabh Bachchan brings out the best in Akhtar. 

Bachchan's acting is up to his usually lofty standards, but the introduction of his character takes the sting out of the proceedings. For someone who has to be manipulative, he is way too pleasant, too nice. And if there's one thing great chess players who are engaged in the game are not; is nice. They may look like nice people, and may even be likable but when the board comes out and the pieces are stacked, nice goes out the window, likable ceases to exist and just two things; destruction and self-preservation are the tools they wield.  

Neil Nitin Mukesh has a scene stealing role akin to a villain in a superhero movie. He doesn't feature in a single throwaway sequence. Nice one NNM.


Mention must also be made of Aditi Rao Hydari who conveys a strong silent presence and theater stalwart Manav Kaul is superb as the Kashmiri politician, his character is pivotal to the entire drama. John Abraham's role is so small that at best he can claim to have been a part of a Vidhu Vinod Chopra film. 

Wazir is a tale about two broken men; a police officer who loses everything including his will to live after a devastating encounter, and a chess master who through his own experiences provides him with a chance to gain retribution. Their mission is mutually beneficial. For challenging conventional thinking and achieving enough in its relatively short running time of just under two hours, for being different and interesting, Wazir merits a thumbs up...