Predictable platter

Gurnaaz Kaur

In an arranged set-up, a boy meets a girl. Love happens and marriage follows. Living a happy life of commoners who work as software engineers, this story of Sameer (Vidyut Jammwal) and Nargis Chaudhary (Shivaleeka Oberoi) is jolted when the global economy is hit by recession (2008). Within months of getting married, Sameer has to shut his business and Nargis loses her job. This is how the movie Khuda Hafiz, released on Disney+Hotstar, takes off.

Next thing you know is this Lucknow-based couple decides to apply for jobs in a fictional middle-east country named Noman. As plan (not luck) would have it, Nargis gets the job offer before her husband and even though she has hardly stepped out of Lucknow, she agrees to go alone because Sameer would join her in five days. This might seem believable in black and white, but when you see the whole scene unfolding, it’s quite clear that the agent isn’t worth trusting.

On top of that, the naivety being displayed by Sameer and Nargis is purely enactment. Something is fishy, as viewers we already know and it gets confirmed when Nargis manages to make the first and last call from Noman to tell Sameer that nothing she was not being treated well. Soon, Sameer sets out on the mission to find his wife.

On reaching foreign shores, Sameer meets a pathan cabbie Usman Ali Murad (Annu Kapoor), who sticks by him till the end. While Annu Kapoor has played his part to perfection (barring the Arabic accent that isn’t too convincing), why a cabbie chooses to go all out to help a stranger… only the director knows.

Sameer, who seeks help from the police and later Indian Embassy, manages to find exactly where his wife is on his own. Finally when he realises that his wife has been forced into flesh trade, we get to see what Vidyut is best known for — martial arts. The man on a mission enters the prostitution ring and on finding his wife, begins to beat the bad guys black and blue. However, he isn’t successful in rescuing his wife.

Here, Shiv Panditt and Aahana Kumra enter the story as members of ISA, the law enforcement agency of the country. They play their parts well, barring the thick Arabic accent, which is quite forced upon them. The government, law, cops and Indian Embassy together are unable to do what Vidyut does himself then — reach the kingpin!

Unnecessary twists to build up suspense only make it a pain to carry on watching the film. One knows the end right from the beginning!

Vidyut may have established himself as an action hero, but needs to emote better. Sheevalika Oberoi hardly has any screen presence, even after being central to the plot. Watch the film if you are an action-lover or a Vidyut fan. You can also fast forward it just to get a glimpse of the beautiful locales of Uzbekistan, where most of it has been shot.