<p>Kandahar - the title of the film bears the whiff of the story, which is built around the Taliban-orchestrated hijack of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999.<br /><br />When Major Ravi serves us with this filmi relish, we have to take it, smelling something stale. For, the director ( who seems yet to shed off his Keerthi Chakra/Kurukshetra euphoria) has dished out more or less the same old saga of characters and events. Thus we find ourselves once more with bold and upright Major Mahadevan ( Mohanlal) and his handpicked bunch of commandos. To embolden his buddies this is his advice : One is born to die and it is just a matter of time. <br /><br />The director also finds time and space to reiterate that death of a companion is great pain – as he has done in his two previous movies. Mahadevan’s grit and gumption again startles his wavering superiors. This time, when he ventures out to rescue the holed-up passengers. <br /><br />Big B’s appearance as Loknath Sharma, a respectable teacher, is touching though the icon utters barely a word or two in Malayalam. Sharma is the father of a “highly qualified, unemployed, frustrated youth” (Ganesh Venkatraman). For Ganesh, it is a good break while most other characters lie low.<br /><br />While the first half of the film staggers on with trivial dialogues and scenes of military hardships, the defining latter half appears to end soon but not so well. <br /><br />The film, also a commentary on ant-jihadi aspirations of Muslims (though in a dramatic way), ends up with this teaser: ‘Mission continues... .’ But enough of such missions and what we expect next time is one without any traces of repetition.<br /></p>
<p>Kandahar - the title of the film bears the whiff of the story, which is built around the Taliban-orchestrated hijack of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999.<br /><br />When Major Ravi serves us with this filmi relish, we have to take it, smelling something stale. For, the director ( who seems yet to shed off his Keerthi Chakra/Kurukshetra euphoria) has dished out more or less the same old saga of characters and events. Thus we find ourselves once more with bold and upright Major Mahadevan ( Mohanlal) and his handpicked bunch of commandos. To embolden his buddies this is his advice : One is born to die and it is just a matter of time. <br /><br />The director also finds time and space to reiterate that death of a companion is great pain – as he has done in his two previous movies. Mahadevan’s grit and gumption again startles his wavering superiors. This time, when he ventures out to rescue the holed-up passengers. <br /><br />Big B’s appearance as Loknath Sharma, a respectable teacher, is touching though the icon utters barely a word or two in Malayalam. Sharma is the father of a “highly qualified, unemployed, frustrated youth” (Ganesh Venkatraman). For Ganesh, it is a good break while most other characters lie low.<br /><br />While the first half of the film staggers on with trivial dialogues and scenes of military hardships, the defining latter half appears to end soon but not so well. <br /><br />The film, also a commentary on ant-jihadi aspirations of Muslims (though in a dramatic way), ends up with this teaser: ‘Mission continues... .’ But enough of such missions and what we expect next time is one without any traces of repetition.<br /></p>
