Umar: A confused canvas

The film starts with a sentimental touch and ends up as an attempted thriller.

Umar
Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Shehnaz Treasurywala, Kader Khan, Satish Kaushik, Prem Chopra
Direction: Karan Razdan
Rating: **

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Director Karan Razdan seems forever confused. First there was Girlfriend — he wasn’t sure if he was making a serious portrayal of lesbianism or a C flick. And now there is Umar.

This time Razdan isn’t sure if he wanted to go the Baghban way (old people and their woes - read: cruel, insensitive children) or churn out the great prison escape thriller. The two seemingly varied genres don’t meet - shouldn’t meet, not unless you know the basic job of filmmaking. And that itself makes Umar one big confused (and needless) cinematic exercise.

Umar starts off on a sentimental touch and ends up as an attempted thriller. The result is that the film is neither here, nor there.

At the heart of

Umar

are three old men Iqbal (Kader Khan), Rajpal (Satish Kaushik) and Chandrakant (Prem Chopra). The three men live in London with their families, forever treated shabbily by their children. Respite comes by way of Shashank (Jimmy Shergill), a young man who wins them over with his caring ways. Thrown into this tale is Shashank’s love life, Shehnaz Treasurywala as Sapna, whose rich dad doesn’t approve of the

jodi.

Baghban

to the power three? Read on: Shashank is framed for a murder he never committed. The three old men decide to help him escape. In a wild twist of plot, idea, theme, logic and sanity,

Umar

suddenly tries to become a thriller.

The escape happens as Shashank is being taken to jail. Here on, the script loses any shot at novelty that you were praying for. You know the mean children of the oldies will inform the police about Shashank’s whereabouts to win the reward on his head. You know that the three old men will stand by the hero till the end. You know that his name will be cleared and the film will finally end.

And when the film finally ends, you are still trying to figure out what it was all about.