Faraaz

These are real events and most people who read about what happened in the upscale cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh know what happened and how the events unfolded.

Naming the movie after Faraaz, the brave, idealistic young man who stood by his friends when terrorists threatened their lives, would perhaps have been a smarter choice if he actually had more of a role in the movie. Most of his scenes have been spent shaking in pain or holding his friends in fear, with little to no actual dialogues , which does make sense in a realistic scenario of what people would do if such a situation arose, but perhaps does not make for very entertaining viewing. The best actor by far, is Aditya Rawal playing the main terrorist Nibras . He is shrewd, darkly funny and very very believable.

The film tries to explore the Good Muslim-Bad Muslim debate, but falls short of providing substantial content for a meaningful discussion. The characters themselves are reduced to Twitter-like debating without adding any depth to the discourse. After leaving the theatre, one may not feel invested in the lives lost or the terrorists' motivations. The portrayal of a neighboring Muslim country is likely to be controversial. Nevertheless, the film is a tense hostage drama that prompts reflection. However, the ultimate purpose of the film may leave the viewer questioning its relevance. The film's cinematic execution is flawed, as it struggles to find a consistent tone and fails to balance its various elements effectively. It vacillates between being dramatic and subtle, humorous and ironic, resulting in an unconvincing and disjointed viewing experience.

Firstly a message to my Bangladeshi brethren... can you please calm down about Bangladeshi police speaking Hindi. What exactly were you guys expecting... that they would speak shudh Bangla .. and us people in South India would magically understand it? That's the best you can think of to thrash this film? Jeez! You guys need to grow up.

I can empathize with your anger about the film maker trying to whitewash Faraaz's role. I'm a neutral guy in a corner of south India and hence can buy your argument about lack of evidence about whether Faraaz was truly a hero. But this is where I again want to call our common cultural background from the Indian subcontinent...I think it is highly stupid of us to expect our film industry to be truthful to history when the real torch bearers of history themselves aren't. Many movies of Indian historical incidents that are so totally distorted. Rani Padmavat. That wasn't even a real character. And yet there was a huge controversy in India over it... all because some Bollywood director thought he was given the duty of educating us about history. Take our Bollywood movies with a bag of salt... and keep the perspective that this is only a movie. You guys have enough things to bow your head about how things transpired with the traitors in your country post independence. When you can live with that... this is small fry.

This movie has made me wonder about the safety of the breweries and eateries in Bengaluru, and other places, which can accommodate hundreds of people, whther they are prepared to handle terrorist attacks such as the one shown in the movie. The movie was average. I liked the meaning of the name Faraaz and the message given in the end. However, I couldn't connect to the movie. The events in the movie were not organized properly and it was like grabbing pieces from here and there and clubbed together. The movie could have been better directed. It is a one time watch movie and should be watched without much expectations.

The intention of this film was good, to show us the story of Faraaz, a boy who stood by his friends in tough times of a terrorist attack at Holey Artisan bakery (2016) and also challenges the terrorists of their interpretation of Islam.

But my first question arises is that we have many films in India based on the same topics so why do we need a story from Bangladesh made in india? I am not complaining that bravery stories should not be narrated . We must know their stories but my question is, have Indian films covered up the stories of all bravehearts in india ? Have we run out of Indian bravery stories that we now have to look for more in other countries? In that case, we might just see some bravery story being made in India based on some American guy or some Israeli guy etc etc. I really didn't get this entire thing.

Second question, the film is based in Bangladesh but everyone speaks in pure Hindi with not even one Bengali word or even a tinch of Bengali accent in their hindi language . I had to slap myself twice to remind myself that this film is not set in Delhi but in Dhaka. This is unbelievable. Hansal Mehta has absolutely not given any effort to reviewing the fact that some Bengali words or accent should be present in the dialogues. He assumed if we incorporate Bengali probably noones gonna understand the language when one section of Indian audience itself is Bengali.

Third question, why is this film at times unintentionally funny? Such a terrifying event taking place and we have terrorists and even the police outside exchanging dialogues that sound funny. The police outside itself is shown as a joke doing nothing and only getting killed by the terrorists.

Fourth question, the film is named Faraaz but our boy Faraaz is just a side character in this film. Isn't that weird? I mean Aditya Rawal, the lead terrorist gets the maximum screen space and Faraaz i believe gets a screen space of ...at the most 15 mins and the film is 1 hr 40 mins long. The director is clearly unsure who the lead of this film should be. If the film is to be based on Faraaz , then i would suggest anyone veiwing this film to just see the first 20 mins and the last 20 mins that's it. The remaining 1 hr is just terrorists roaming around doing nothing and the police running around... doing nothing .

Aditya Rawal definitely seems a good actor. The boy who plays Faraaz doesn't get to show much but still seemed good in those last 20 mins.

Overall, this is a film which should have existed in Bangladesh than in india but what can we do? Since it's made now in india, we can't reverse it. You may watch it on ott to witness Faraaz 's story but his story itself is so short that it hardly had any impact on me atleast and on top of that, the execution of this film is also extremely average topped with some jarring decisions like not to incorporate an iota of Bengali in the dialogues.... certainly not Hansal Mehta's top work.