Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante (2006)

Sometimes, movies are just amazing. For example... this movie.

The story is fairly simple. You have a rich doctor (Rajit Kapoor), his wife (Konkona Sen Sharma) and their daughter. One day, while the doctor is out of town to receive an award, wife/daughter come home from shopping... and daughter gets kidnapped. One of the kidnappers (Irrfan Khan) stays with Konkona, and 1 goes with the daughter to a different location (Zakir Hussain). Meanwhile, after receiving the award, the doctor also ends up with a part of the kidnapping trio in his room (Sandhya Mridul).

Their demands are simple... pay them 1 crore rupees in 24 hours, and the daughter goes free. As luck would have it though, the kidnapped daughter has asthma, forcing Irrfan Khan to take Konkona Sen Sharma to another location to give medicines to Zakir Hussain & daughter. As a result, after the doctor is able to find 1 crore rupees, Irrfan Khan raises the amount to 2 crore, with the argument that he deserves more for saving the daughter's life.

Meanwhile, things go on. Konkona Sen Sharma tries to kill Irrfan Khan. The daughter tries to escape. The doctor finally gets 2 crore... only to have Irrfan raise it again. Things go on. The doctor finally gets the 3 crore, brings it into the room... and Sandhya Mridul pepper sprays him and disappears with the money. A distraught doctor heads home... his daughter isn't there. And Konkona lets him know that they'll never see their daughter alive again.


Why? Well, if you watch Bollywood movies, it's probably very obvious. Which is the only real letdown of the movie. The movie is relatively quick (1 hour, 40 minutes) and has no songs, which is definitely a plus. While the reason for the kidnapping seems a bit extreme, the acting is enough to overcome a minor issue.

The acting carries this movie to amazing heights. Konkona Sen Sharma, as the worried/frustrated/angry mother, is solid. At the end though, she has to be thanking everything holy that Irrfan didn't kill her... she gave him so many chances. At the meeting with her daughter. When he tries to pull the gun on him. When she tries to kill him. Etc, etc.

Irrfan Khan as the lead kidnapper is amazing yet again. He's able to fit into almost every role naturally, be him the villain (like here) or a comic sidekick (Sunday) or one of the main characters in a good role (Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota) or whatever. His anger, his pain... it all seems real. Which is what you're looking for from an actor.

Zakir Hussain is awesome! Other than the fact that they have Devdas playing in the background for a second (ugh!), of course. He's a smoker... a big time one at that. But he's unable to smoke throughout the movie because of the girl's asthma. He'll sit and play with the cigarettes though. He seriously seems like he's trying to have a ball with a girl that he's kidnapped... trying to make sure she's happy as can be and not having an asthma attack and all that. He goes to make the coffee, he makes tomato soup, etc... he's generally anger free, save for 1- Doctor calling him an idiot and 2- daughter trying to run away. One of the best roles I've seen him in.

Sandhya Mridul & Rajit Kapoor are more or less invisible... they don't have much to do save sit in the hotel room and look all weird... Sandhya randomly breaks out laughing (really awkward & unnecessary, in my opinion) while Rajit is just tensed the entire time. That said, they handled the roles well, which in a movie like this is a huge need. The daughter is solid too. The asthma attack scene was a bit weird, but other than that, she plays it well too.

I loved this movie... you should go watch it ASAP. (And if you don't like it, change your movie views. It's amazing.)