तेरे बिन लादन
Dir. Abhishek Sharma
I am not sure I have ever seen a movie quite like Tere Bin Laden (a pun meaning both "your Bin Laden" and "without you, Laden"). It takes what could be a charged, angry, minefield of a premise and turns it into a film that is light on its feet, absurd, and utterly charming.
Ali Hassan (Ali Zafar) has dreamed of emigrating to America ever since he was a little boy in Karachi, Pakistan. After an unfortunate misunderstanding puts the brakes on that dream, Ali is stuck as a beat reporter for the tin-can outfit Danka TV. He knows a guy who can give him a new identity and a false passport, but it's an expensive proposition. While covering a cock-crowing contest in a nearby village, Ali discoveres a guileless chicken farmer named Noora (Pradhuman Singh), who is a dead ringer for Osama Bin Laden. Ali hatches a plan - fabricate a fraudulent Bin Laden video and sell it to finance his American dream. He enlists the help of his cameraman and best friend Gul (Nikhil Ratnaparkhi); the hapless Danka TV tech Lateef (Chirag Vohra); a makeup artist named Zoya (Sugandha Garg) with big dreams of her own; and a drunken revolutionary underground radio jockey Qureishi (Rahul Singh), who is all anger with very little substance. The video is a big success - bigger than Ali bargained for, as it unleashes a war that threatens to put the kibosh once again on his trip to America, and brings a CIA manhunt to his doorstep. Ali and the gang have no choice but to undo the mess they made, in a hurry.
After watching the darkly wry Peepli Live, I suppose I expected similar bleakness from Tere Bin Laden. The film's opening scenes - in which Ali, on a flight to America just days after 9/11, is presumed to be a terrorist and arrested - made me squirm, wondering if I was in for a (not at all undeserved) scathing comic attack on my country's attitude toward brown people. In the terrific song that plays over the opening credits, "Ullu da pattha," Ali is booked and interrograted. He stands in a line-up bearing a sign reading "South Asian" - along with a black man whose sign reads "African," a Latin man whose sign reads "Mexican," and a white man whose sign reads "Peter." This commentary on the way white America treats its own versus how it treats perceived outsiders is certainly both astute and cleverly rendered. But it also hit a little too close to home, and I feared the film would be difficult for me to watch. Lucky for me, these opening scenes do not set the tone, nor reflect dreamy, idealistic message of the rest of the movie.
Instead, the movie is relentlessly silly, with a finale that is so sweetly ridiculous as to obliterate any hints of political critique that might have been lurking after that introductory scene and song. There could be some implied crticism of American foreign policy in the backdrop, hinted at in the news reports of the bombings ignited by Ali's fraudulent Bin Laden video. But if there is, it is more than balanced by Ali's own unwavering love for Amreeka. Even the film's one American character, the CIA man in charge of the hunt for Bin Laden, Ted Wood (Barry John), tempers his bluster with some genuine savvy - he's not merely a big man with big guns. He seems to respect his Pakistani assistant Usman (Chinmay Mandlekar), delegating real authority to him. And when the fraud hits the fan, Wood is smart enough to listen to Ali and work with him.
This lightness and balance leaves the audience free to laugh all the way through - and in my case as an American, unburdened by a great deal of "it's funny because it's true" guilt and discomfort. And even without a heavy political message, Tere Bin Laden has plenty to offer. Packed with laughs and slapstick, the movie rides Ali Zafar's pop-star charisma from beginning to end. He is simply adorable in this role - gentle, idealistic, and earnest. The scenes where he volunteers to pay the fines levied on Lateef by their tyrannical boss Majeed Khan (Piyush Mishra) are genuinely touching. Pradhuman Singh as the utterly ingenuous Noora is also a revelation; he even manages to be loveable, rather than creepy, as he sweats and prays for control of his desires when Zoya gets close enough to apply his makeup.
The other characters in the gang add color and depth, resulting in a movie that is smart, light-hearted, and simply great fun. At just a little over 90 minutes running time, it's easy to squeeze in as an apertif or a late-night snack - I've already watched it twice, and it's an instant favorite.