Ek Ajnabee

Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Rucha Vaidya, Perizaad Zorabian, Vikram Chatwal, Dayashankar Pandey

5.5/10

The temptation for critics to draw parallels will be there as it’s the same crime that’s shifted location from Bihar in Prakash Jha’s Apaharan to Bangkok in Apoorva Lakhia’s Ek Ajnabee. The thriving kidnapping industry which, as the film begins by saying, after drugs is the second biggest crime industry in the world today. But when it’s a Big B film one’s talking about, it’s almost blasphemy to draw parallels, with other films or his own.

When it’s his film one’s talking about, even if he did it because the director is Abhishek’s close friend, one doesn’t get into debates whether it’s inspired or adapted or whatever polite term Lakhia would like us to use, by Hollywood film Man on Fire. Onscreen is the man of fire himself. With a 10-year-old Rucha Vaidya as the heroine in his life. And no matter how much Lakhia might ask us to focus on the other parts of his film, as the Big B asks Rucha to do when he trains her to be a winner, it’s a little difficult for us to do so. The kidnapping drama is gripping enough, well shot, well paced after the initial slow start, with just the right twists and turns and Arjun Rampal, another Lakhia friend, acting hot enough in an item with Czech dancer Hannah, but not memorable stuff, as the Big B’s half-closed eyes as he tries to shut out the past or Rucha’s smile as she snuggles up to him.

With him, one doesn’t question if he bonds well with his little heroine. He has a way with children, and a year he began with Ayesha Kapoor in Black, he ends with Rucha in Ek Ajnabee. Bringing out the best in both, the fine little actresses. And when one’s watching him change his ruthless killer persona to Rucha’s “Surya Teddy” between sequences, one can be forgiven for having almost forgotten the special appearances promised in the credits till they suddenly rap in at the end.

Deepali Singh