A grief-stricken cop and an amputee grandmaster are brought together by a peculiar twist of fate as part of a wider conspiracy that has darkened their lives.A grief-stricken cop and an amputee grandmaster are brought together by a peculiar twist of fate as part of a wider conspiracy that has darkened their lives.A grief-stricken cop and an amputee grandmaster are brought together by a peculiar twist of fate as part of a wider conspiracy that has darkened their lives.
- Awards
- 9 nominations
Anjumm Shharma
- Sartaj
- (as Anjum Sharma)
Nasir Khan
- Rameez
- (as Nassir Quazi)
Nishigandha Wad
- Ruhana's Mother
- (as Dr. Nishigandha Wad)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAmitabh Bachchan had read the original script 12 years ago.
- Goofs2SP tells Daanish he has 30 seconds to get Qureishi while he holds off the commandos - but several minutes elapse while Roohi tells Daanish her story. What happened to the 30 second-limit?
- Quotes
[You'll learn the game when you play the game... when you win and lose, then winning will teach you losing... when you play the game]
- Alternate versionsThe UK release was cut, the distributor chose to remove moments of strong violence and injury detail in order to obtain a 12A classification. An uncut 15 classification was available.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Tau's random film reviews: Wazir (2016)
- SoundtracksTere Bin
Written by Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Produced by Shantanu Moitra
Performed by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal
Featured review
In An Attempt To Save The King, The Queen Dies. ♦ Grade C+
With its IMDb page created 14 years ago before the film finally released, the makers' attempt at checkmating their audience with their crime drama only results in a stalemate where the game is mostly declared a draw.
The story starts with a death, as dutiful and physically fit anti-terrorist operations officer Daanish (Akhtar) regrets his decision of impulsively going behind a known terrorist when he is out with his family. Seeking vengeance, he goes on a rampage and gets himself suspended, only to meet Dhar (Bachchan), a widowed and physically disabled chess enthusiast, who is fighting his own devils after his teen daughter was killed in a mysterious accident. They become friends, and so starts a game of chess as Daanish becomes a friendly yet courageous horse for Dhar to find his daughter's killer.
Slow motion and suspended audio hook effects in the initial sequences marvelously entices its audience's attention, and it stays that way through the first act. However, Hydari's character evokes a sort of necessary but terse drama into the narrative which continues to happen throughout the movie. With good dialogs and a well-written screenplay, stylistic antagonists appear and drive the story forward. Mukesh's aura is appreciably different for what he's worth, and Nambiar fancily uses his charm to herald a new type of villain into Bollywood that is away from the deadpan elements we have been seeing in celluloid these past years.
However, the story has one too many flaws. Minor ones like Dhar driving a vehicle without his limbs in place can be forgiven, but if one digs deeper into the story that lays itself out in the second act, one will realize that the game which started with 8 ferocious pawns only has one pawn left and it is up to this pawn to take the film forward to a conclusive end. Of course it does, and it does beautifully, but the speed of this transition of a humdrum crime case turning into a thriller is too fast. Flip flops between the drama and the case affects the narrative, only to create an unrest in the audience.
So, as the pawn sets out to find the mysterious wazir, queen dies, and the king is high on vodka. Since the queen is dead, the game is more or less over. The wonderful climax is all that saves the pawn from going out on a limb, and manages to salvage the whole game.
Cast is brilliant; Akhtar and Bachchan are both good, but one will find the latter more believable in his character. Hydari just mops and sobs, while Mukesh does better acting in his 60-second space than in all his rest of the filmography combined. All said and done, Nambiar's attempt thankfully does not get convoluted, and is read out clearly in its 100 minute running time, but still the story has its flaws and the gist of it is nothing new that our palettes haven't tasted before.
BOTTOM LINE: Bejoy Nambiar's Wazir is an inventive thriller whose base story may be ordinary, but watch out for the titular character, for he may impress you with his faith and power and sheer thirst for retribution.
GRADE: C+
Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES
The story starts with a death, as dutiful and physically fit anti-terrorist operations officer Daanish (Akhtar) regrets his decision of impulsively going behind a known terrorist when he is out with his family. Seeking vengeance, he goes on a rampage and gets himself suspended, only to meet Dhar (Bachchan), a widowed and physically disabled chess enthusiast, who is fighting his own devils after his teen daughter was killed in a mysterious accident. They become friends, and so starts a game of chess as Daanish becomes a friendly yet courageous horse for Dhar to find his daughter's killer.
Slow motion and suspended audio hook effects in the initial sequences marvelously entices its audience's attention, and it stays that way through the first act. However, Hydari's character evokes a sort of necessary but terse drama into the narrative which continues to happen throughout the movie. With good dialogs and a well-written screenplay, stylistic antagonists appear and drive the story forward. Mukesh's aura is appreciably different for what he's worth, and Nambiar fancily uses his charm to herald a new type of villain into Bollywood that is away from the deadpan elements we have been seeing in celluloid these past years.
However, the story has one too many flaws. Minor ones like Dhar driving a vehicle without his limbs in place can be forgiven, but if one digs deeper into the story that lays itself out in the second act, one will realize that the game which started with 8 ferocious pawns only has one pawn left and it is up to this pawn to take the film forward to a conclusive end. Of course it does, and it does beautifully, but the speed of this transition of a humdrum crime case turning into a thriller is too fast. Flip flops between the drama and the case affects the narrative, only to create an unrest in the audience.
So, as the pawn sets out to find the mysterious wazir, queen dies, and the king is high on vodka. Since the queen is dead, the game is more or less over. The wonderful climax is all that saves the pawn from going out on a limb, and manages to salvage the whole game.
Cast is brilliant; Akhtar and Bachchan are both good, but one will find the latter more believable in his character. Hydari just mops and sobs, while Mukesh does better acting in his 60-second space than in all his rest of the filmography combined. All said and done, Nambiar's attempt thankfully does not get convoluted, and is read out clearly in its 100 minute running time, but still the story has its flaws and the gist of it is nothing new that our palettes haven't tasted before.
BOTTOM LINE: Bejoy Nambiar's Wazir is an inventive thriller whose base story may be ordinary, but watch out for the titular character, for he may impress you with his faith and power and sheer thirst for retribution.
GRADE: C+
Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES
helpful•54
- nairtejas
- Jan 7, 2016
- How long is Wazir?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,124,045
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $586,028
- Jan 10, 2016
- Gross worldwide
- $5,633,588
- Runtime1 hour 43 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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