REVIEW: Tere Bin Laden

OSAMA BEWARE!

Unusual for an Indian film to be set in Pakistan, but a story like Tere Bin Laden could only have taken place there (though shot in Hyderabad).  Low budget and tacky, this Abhishek Sharma film makes up for lack of production values with its cheeky humour. 

Ali (Ali Zafar) TV reporter for a third rate channel is obsessed with the idea of going to America, but can’t get a visa.  While shooting a cock crowing competition in a sleepy village, he discovers an Osama Bin Laden lookalike. 

Noora (Pradhuman Singh) is an eccentric poultry farmer, who is conned into recording a threatening message to America.  Ali and his sidekick (Nikhil Ratnaparkhi) sell the video to their own skinflint boss (Piyush Mishra). The release of this ‘breaking news’ footage creates a sensation and sends a posse of paranoid American agents, led by the buffoonish Ted Wood (Barry John) to Pakistan.

It is a terrific idea, and the film is peppered with loads of wit, and barbs at American warmongering,  but it fails to rise up to its true potential as a political satire like Wag The Dog or the recent Brit comedy In The Loop—it is content to remain at the level of school boy farce.

Still, it entertains, it has its own innocent charm, the actors are all peppy and enthusiastic—Chirag Vora as the meek editor of the video, Sunanda Garg as the make-up expert and Rahul Singh as the voice artist.  But Ali Zafar and Pradhuman Singh really fuel this madcap comedy.  The latter is a real find, and deserves to be ‘discovered’ by mainstream Bollywood.

Tere Bin Laden, despite its shortcomings, is just the kind of impish film that should be coming up more often on the indie circuit.

Comments

[savitri]

This film reminds me of a british film Alien Autopsy.