Speed

Speed, directed by Vikram Bhatt has all the elements of a thriller, but not executed well enough. The story is clearly inspired by two Hollywood films, Phone Booth and Cellular, but lacks their fast pace and a cohesive story line. No attempt is made to disguise this plagiarism or add some originality, except for a few dull songs, none of which are memorable. London forms the background of the movie, but no attempt is made to portray it differently in the movie.

Rating: 1/5

The film starts with Zayed Khan coming to London to woo his lady love Tanushree Dutta. He wants her to give their relationship one more chance and begs for her forgiveness. Then you have an undercover agent Sanjay Suri, posing as a chef, whose wife Urmila Matondkar gets kidnapped. He gets a CD containing his wife’s clips, but does not know why she has been kidnapped. He takes the help of a colleague, Amrita Arora to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Urmial Matondkar in Speed

The kidnappers, Aftab Shivdasani and Sophie Chaudhary want Sanjay to assassinate the Indian PM on a visit to London, or threaten to finish his wife, Urmila. He refuses, putting duty before family, only to be told that his son’s life is also in danger, if he fails in his assigned mission. It so happens that Aashish Chaudhary is a London cop in charge of the security of the Indian PM and Amrita Arora’s boyfriend. However, the PM’s visit coincides with Amrita’s birthday. What a dilemma, should he spend the day with his demanding girlfriend or save the PM’s life!!

Now coming to the interesting part of the movie, Urmila somehow gets hold of a cell phone and calls a wrong number that belongs to Zayed. She pleads with him to save her life and he decides to turn into her savior, forgetting the purpose of his visit to London. And here the movie picks up speed as Zayed undertakes stunts to help Urmila. The mission of the actors is to save Urmila as well as the Indian PM’s life. How they achieve this forms the main storyline of the movie. The ending is predictable as expected.

Coming to the performances of the lead actors, Sanjay Suri is understated. He disappoints, especially after his earlier films like My Brother Nikhil. Aftab Shivdasani is totally miscast as the kidnapping mastermind and is quite wooden. Urmila, as the victim is quite convincing and Zayed delivers a believable performance after a long time. Amrita Arora, Sophie Chaudhary and Tanushree are just eye-candy and add to the crowd in the movie.

Speed could have been a promising film, with suspense, blackmail and a conspiracy, but it fails miserably on all counts. Go ahead and see Speed only if you have absolutely nothing to do and dig predictable fare.

Rating: 1/5