Movie Review: Phantom is a Feeble Attempt at Film Making
Kabir Khan’s Phantom doesn’t fail to disappoint you. But plot twists, bad acting spoil the film.
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Director Kabir Khan’s favourite pastime seems to be sending Bollywood stars to Pakistan. After Salman Khan in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, it’s now time for Saif Ali Khan to cross over.
Terrorist Hafiz Saeed is mighty upset with Phantom. Considering the way he has been portrayed in the film that’s even understandable. But why is it that innocuous, unsuspecting citizens like us don’t have much to cheer about in this film?
That’s because this 147-minute-long movie has only 47 mins of great action and 100 mins of random phantom logic!
Saif Walks In, Amul Macho Style
We have a RAW agent – wide eyed enthu cutlet played by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. He rants to his boss about how the 26/11 terrorists are roaming freely in Pakistan while India does nothing – “Hum kuch nahi karte bas cricket khelna band ker dete hai”.
So the action plan entails reading up Hussain S Zaidi’s book, conjuring up a phantom who in typical Saif Ali Khan’s “Amul Macho – bade araamse style” solves India’s terrorism problem in a jiffy.
Best suited for the mission is someone who nobody knows about. His anonymity will be his greatest strength we are told. Where do you find such a man?
What’s Katrina Doing Here?
In the dusty files at the RAW headquarters, my friend. He isn’t on Facebook so yay, no one can send him a friend request. That’s being anonymous right? So that’s why they zero in on Daniyal Khan, a disgraced Indian Army soldier.
In walks a frowning Saif Ali Khan with an untrimmed beard. My gut says his angry look could well be because he misplaced his razor. But I admit I have no way of confirming that!
Moving on, the real phantom is Katrina Kaif. No one knows why she is there. Even she herself doesn’t. Katrina is called Nawaz in the film. So what if director Kabir Khan couldn’t get her to act […] he did after all name her after the best actor around.
‘Nawaz’ Only Pouts
The only problem is every time you here the name “Nawaz”, you expect great acting. What you get is just Katrina Kaif pouting. But never mind, she looks hot so we’ll cut her some slack.
So Daniyal with his home-grown beard and Nawaz with her swaying long hair jump around from Chicago to London to Beirut to Syria and finally to ground zero – Pakistan.
Now to be fair, some action sequences are fun to watch. Lots of dreaded terrorists have been put to task including a certain Mr Headley. Seeing them getting their due even if in a fictional sphere is nevertheless fun.
Plot Twists And Spoils It
What ruins the party are the incredulous plot twists and some daft logic. Saif and Katrina as toughies trying to tackle hardened criminals are unconvincing. The love angle is forced and the dialogues fail to leave any impact.
Every time the story loses its way and the thrill fizzles out, tiny pills of patriotism are thrown at us. While these help us to remain afloat for some time, the sinking feeling of things not going right is omnipresent throughout the film.
Phantom is a feeble attempt at film making. We are just glad there were no item numbers being sung off the coast of Karachi. There you have it – a silver lining! It is no doubt an average affair. With no other big release this week watch it if you must. I’ll go with 2.5 QUINTS out of 5.