Desi thrillers have got thrilling, but still not lajawaab
Over the last few decades, desi productions have come up to speed, matching several aspects of the best foreign action films. The camerawork and sound can be as sophisticated as in any international cine-product, the non-action acting can be good too, and the editing can be world-class lajawaab.
But where we shoot ourselves in the foot is in the actual action bits.
You may have never been in the same galaxy as a firefight, but you know that when this fool of an 'Indian Agent' crosses the courtyard in a running crouch, he's leaving himself open to being nailed by a hail of bullets from the villain's Uzi. And when that doesn't happen, you feel the plot-umpires were biased.
In a chase sequence, our actors invariably do stupid things, which fail to capture the villain, moving when they should stay still and vice versa, forgetting ever to replace the magazine after having let off 20 shots from a handgun that somehow never malfunctions or runs out of ammo.
Adding to this annoyance are protocol things, which happen around the action. The hero operative or his sidekick will be lax and loose-tongued in basic security matters.
The high-risk prisoner-cum-witness will be brought in through the main gate of the airport where anyone could shoot him. The minister of spookery will demand to know things that no minister ever wants to know, and the security agency boss will spill the beans and that too in the hearing of the minister's dodgy secretary.
If you look at a film like Stefano Sollima and Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, the brilliant action scenes take place on a bedrock of solidly laid out procedure and intra-agency politics.
