Mission Istanbul Movie Reviews

Apoorva Lakhia better known for his sleek action packed flicks with an overload of so called €˜stars€™ brings forth his mission with overtones of international terrorism. Vivek Oberoi walked away with rave reviews for his role as €˜Maya Bhai€™ in €˜Shootout€™, now let€™s see what mission offers him?

Synopsis€¦

Vikas [Zayed Khan] is one of the most promising journalists in the country. Owais [Suniel Shetty], who heads a controversial Istanbul-based news channel Al Johara, makes him an offer to head the channel. This offer comes at a time when Vikas is undergoing a divorce with his wife Anjali [Shriya Saran].

But little does Vikas know that the decision will change his life forever. Owais is killed and Turkish commando Rizwan [Vivek Oberoi] tells Vikas that if he decides to quit as well, he would be bumped off as well. In a place where the gun has the last laugh, will a journalist survive or will he fall prey like many others?

This time around you are really perplexed with what€™s going on screen. With all those Osama Bin Laden look alike and news channels and reporters splashed over, the film is headed nowhere to tackle terrorism. The protagonist being an army trained journo with the divorce crisis and bla bla.. it doesn€™t get anywhere.

Apoorva Lakhia has lost it out big time. With his focus on enhancing certain favourites such as Vivek Oberoi , Shabir Ahluwalia and Zayed Khan embedded with all those violent or so called action sequences, the plot lies in the bin.

The movie starts off too with those cliché Shriya Saran €“Zayed Relationship crisis and songs etc further carried on by even more songs and still a lot more songs being so irrelevant.

The songs too are such a drab except for the opening track. It€™s a blessing that they skipped the title track. That€™s some real good decision making!

What about the dialogues of the film? The serious ones made me laugh out loud. The George Bush replica is such a dud. The so called 13th floor of the €˜Alzohra€™ news channel concept is so silly.

On the acting front, Zayed Khan is such a waste. He is so not convincing as the journo and neither can he deliver his lines well. The sequences that require him to get emotional sees him getting into the Shahrukh Khan mould.

Vivek Oberoi is good but gets repetitive. He carries those elements of Bhaigiri throughout and eventually the lacuna in the script makes him sound boring. Shweta Bharadwaj does nothing more than run around trying to be Lara Croft. Shriya Saran has no scope at all and from no angle gets close to being a journo.

Nikhetan Dheer is nothing more than a lump of muscles. The actor who was extremely promising with €˜JodhaAkbar€™ is so underused. Shabir Ahluwalia is the finest lot of them all. He carries off well with his body language and fits the bill. Sunil Shetty is hardly there.

Wonder why the Abhishek Bachchan track was even there?

On the whole, €˜Mission Istanbul€™ sums up to being a dull fare and much below Lakhia€™s standards.

Rating : *