Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 'Mission:Kashmir' sustains interest for the most part, but loses out on the overall appeal, something the plot could have well afforded. There are different strains of thought running through out the movie, which keep overlapping, resulting in no tangible objective. At once, the movie stresses on militancy in the valley, then it shifts focus to the relationship between a boy and his foster father; and somewhere in between it tries to squeeze in a romantic side to the protagonist. The relatively misleading title doesn't help much either. Despite Chopra's best efforts, the movie fails in whatever mission it set out to achieve.
Inayat Khan
(Sanjay Dutt) is a law-abiding officer who wants to rid Kashmir of its militancy. He leads a happy life with his wife Neelima (Sonali Kulkarni) and his son, Irfan. The terrorists in Kashmir issue a
fatwa against any doctor treating a wounded police officer or a member of his family. In an untoward incident Khan's son is injured and he runs from pillar to post to get his son treated. With no doctor willing to touch him, Khan's son succumbs to his injuries. An emotionally disturbed Khan plans a massive attack on a militant
hideout. While executing his plan, he kills the innocent parents of a seven year old boy, Altaf (Hrithick), who watches in shock the merciless killings. He survives, but the eyes of the masked policeman who shot his parents haunt him at night. In a bid to undo his mistake, Khan brings Altaf home to replace his lost son and to give back to Altaf his lost home. Altaf soon learns of Khan's identity and the role he played in the shoot-out. He attempts to kill Khan but fails. He leaves vowing to return to take Khan's life.
With nowhere to go, Altaf turns to Hilal Kohistani (Jackie Shroff) who poisons his mind and makes him a terrorist. Hilal then uses Altaf to launch his 'Mission: Kashmir', which aims at instigating communal violence in Kashmir. Altaf meets up with his childhood friend Sufiya Pervez (Preity Zinta) who is now a T.V. journalist. He uses Sufiya's influence to smuggle in four more of his companions into the T.V. station to execute the bombing of the T.V. tower, marking the first assault on Khan and his men. Before long, Khan makes Altaf see reason and the mission is aborted. Khan and Altaf together save Kashmir from getting destroyed. Sanjay Dutt as Inayat Khan hasn't brought life to his role. His performance lacked intensity. Hrithick was well cast but was too busy flexing his muscles (including the facial ones) to give a realistic performance.
Preity Zinta doesn't have much to do, but she makes her presence felt. Sonali Kulkarni does justice to her role. Jackie Shroff is the sore point of the film. Neither his characterisation nor his costume made sense. His interpretation of the role was the worst part of the
film. The songs in the movie are picturised well, particularly the 'bhumbro' song sequence. The movie has two brilliant scenes. One, the first scene, when a 'Shikara' on the peaceful 'Dal' lake is blown to smithereens and the other, the following scene when Sanjay Dutt comes to investigate the blasted 'Shikara'. Music by Shankar, Ehsan and Loy is hummable. Their background score is well orchestrated. Binod Pradhan's cinematography is the highlight of the film. His camera captures Kashmir at its pristine best. The disappointment lies with Chopra who has written the weak screenplay with Vikram Chandra, Suketu Mehta and Abhijeet Joshi. Coming from a man who gave the industry movies like 'Khamosh' and ' Parinda', this sure is not among his best efforts.
