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A Wednesday!
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Wikipedia article
'A Wednesday!' is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language thriller film written and directed by Neeraj Pandey and produced by Ronnie Screwvala, Anjum Rizvi and Shital Bhatia under UTV Motion Pictures and Friday Filmworks.[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/saif-katrinas-phantom-to-akshays-baby-how-bollywood-has-dealt-with-terrorism-on-screen/1/461132.html "Saif's Phantom to Akshay's Baby: How Bollywood has dealt with terrorism on screen"], 'India Today'. Retrieved 27 August 2015. Though a work of fiction, the script is partly inspired by the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher, the only choices for the lead roles, star respectively as people on either sides of the system. Set between 2 pm and 6 pm on a Wednesday, the film depicts an about-to-retire police commissioner narrating a sequence of events that unfolded on a particular Wednesday. There does not exist any written record, as the awareness of the incident exists only in his mind and in those of several individuals who were involved, willingly and unwillingly, and how those events affected the lives of all the concerned people. It later inspired the Tamil and Telugu simultaneously made films 'Unnaipol Oruvan' and 'Eeenadu' (both 2009), and the Sri Lankan English film 'A Common Man' (2013).
The film, made at a small budget, was a sleeper hit at the box office grossing over Rs. 12 crore worldwide. Despite its low promotion, it was a box office success due to critical acclaim and positive word-of-mouth. Box Office India declared it a hit. Critics praised the movie for its effective storyline and its twist ending. Subsequently, it won a number of awards including the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the 56th National Film Awards.
Plot
Mumbai police commissioner Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher) describes in a voice-over that he is going to retire the following day. He goes on to describe the most challenging case he faced in his career.
An unnamed man (Naseeruddin Shah) carries a travel bag, assumed to contain explosives, in the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station and proceeds to hide the bag in the restroom of a police station opposite the Mumbai Police headquarters. He then goes to the rooftop of a building under construction where he set up his base of operations, equipped with sim cards, mobile phones, and other gadgets. He calls Rathod and informs him that he has placed five bombs in locations throughout Mumbai and has programmed them to explode simultaneously within four hours unless the Commissioner gives in to his demands and releases four terrorists. Rathod alerts his team to trace the location of the caller. The caller tips off television news reporter Naina Roy (Deepal Shaw), telling her it is going to be "the most important day of her life".
The four terrorists demanded by the caller are rounded up by police officers Arif (Jimmy Sheirgill) and Jai (Aamir Bashir). Police depute a young hacker named Anuj to track the location of the caller. The caller asks the two police officers to leave the four militants near a bench on a Juhu Aviation Base runway, but Arif leaves only three behind and takes one of them, Ibrahim Khan, captive as he suspects that the caller would not reveal the locations of the bombs even after the militants are released.
A phone placed under the bench rings and an explosion occurs, killing the three terrorists. The anonymous caller reveals he does not belong to any terrorist organization, and his plan was not to free the terrorists but to kill them. The caller, being just a "stupid common man wanting to clean his house", sought to avenge the terrorist attacks they had helped carry out in major cities in India, specifically the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. His final demand is that the officers kill Ibrahim themselves or he will set off all five bombs in Mumbai. Rathod indirectly orders Arif and Jai to kill Ibrahim and make it look like it was done in self-defense.
After the death of Ibrahim is confirmed on the news, the caller calls Rathod for a final time to reveal that he has not planted any other bombs in the city. Rathod declares he already knew there were no more bombs hence his decision to kill the last terrorist was not taken in fear but in confidence. Rathod reaches the caller's location just as the caller is leaving, having destroyed all his equipment. The two meet briefly when Rathod, identifying the caller on the basis of a face sketch, offers the man a ride home.
In a voiceover, Rathod says the man told him his real name, but he does not wish to reveal it since doing so would give away the man's religion. Rathod admits that he knew the caller was disturbed because of the incompetence of the governing authorities, but he never imagined a common man would go to such lengths to achieve this end. He also notes that the facts of this incident cannot be found in any written record but only in the memories of those who actually witnessed it, and further acknowledges that although the incident has ambiguous moral significance, he personally feels that whatever happened, happened for the best.
Cast
* Anupam Kher as Prakash Rathod, Commissioner of Mumbai Police
* Naseeruddin Shah as "The Common Man"
* Jimmy Sheirgill as Inspector Arif Khan, ATS
* Aamir Bashir as Inspector Jai Pratap Singh
* Deepal Shaw as Naina Roy, UTV Journalist
* Alok Narula as Raj Sharma; Naina Roy's Cameraman
* Rohitash Gaud as Ikhlaque Ahmed (A terrorist)
* Kali Prasad Mukherjee as Ibrahim Khan (A terrorist)
* Mukesh S Bhatt as Khurshid lala (A terrorist)
* Vije Bhatia as Mohd. Zaheer (A terrorist)
* Chetan Pandit as Chief Minister Sunil Nigvekar
* Rajendra Chawla as Jaishankar Tiwary; Chief Minister's Assistant
* Gaurav Kapoor as Arjun Khanna (Actor); Special Appearance
* Virendra Saxena as Officer In-Charge (O.C) Baburao Patil at Colaba Police Station.
* Snehal Dabi as Shambhu a.k.a. Electric Baba
* Aayam Mehta as Shankar Patil; Chief Minister's Assistant
* Apurva Mehrotra as Anuj Sharma; The Hacker
* Shakti Bharti as Inspector Jai Pratap Singh's wife
* Vicky Ahuja as a middleman who supplied RDX
* Namrata Sawhney as The Common Man's wife; VOICE OVER
Soundtrack
Music composition by Sanjoy Chowdhury with lyrics inscribed by Irshad Kamil & Bulleh Shah. The soundtrack album is released under T-Series label. 6 Songs In Album, But No-one Features In Movie.
*"Theme Song" - N/A
*"Bekali" - Javed Ali
*"Bulleh Shah" - Tochi Raina
*"Bulleh Shah - Remix" - Tochi Raina
*"Jalwa" - Shaan
*"Nazar Lage Na" - Shaan, Mahalakshmi Iyer
*"Parwazen" - Shaan
Production
From casting to completion, 'A Wednesday!' took about eight months. It was filmed on location around Mumbai in 28 days. The terrorist's 'workstation' was an actual under-construction 25-storey building; it was chosen from 50 other such buildings for its clear view of the Mumbai skyline. Since the building had no elevators, a trolley lift was installed; Shah walked up the 25 floors every day. Shah mentioned in an interview that it was the first film of his career where he did not change a single word. He was first offered Kher's role.
Though a work of fiction, the script was inspired by the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. In fact, the incidents that followed the bombings were used as details in the plot.
After finishing the script, Pandey sent it to Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, who were his only choice for the two principal characters. Once both accepted the roles, he approached the producer Anjum Rizvi who liked the subject and the casting. Meanwhile, UTV Motion Pictures heard of the project, took it on, and bought the film's rights from Rizvi and Pandey.
Release
The release was delayed because UTV's own production, 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' (2008), also based on the Mumbai train serial blasts, was scheduled for an August release. 'A Wednesday!' was released in September alongside 'Hijack' and Santosh Sivan's 'Tahaan'.
Reception
'A Wednesday!' received critical acclaim with many comparing it to the movies of the 'Die Hard' series. In a 'Tehelka' review, while commending Neeraj Pandey for a tightly scripted film, "red herrings, finely etched characters", also noted "(for the film), the real Anupam Kher, whom we met in 'Saaransh', and the real Naseeruddin Shah, whom we knew from 'Bazaar' and 'Mandi' and 'Sparsh', both show up." 'The Times of India'
Noted critic Rajeev Masand of 'CNN-IBN' gave 4 out of 5 stars, and a positive review saying, "It's difficult to explain just how good A Wednesday is without giving away too much about the film. Because believe me, it's a film best seen without any impressions. It's a film whose charm lies in its unraveling". 'The Economic Times's critic, Gaurav Malani, wrote, "A Wednesday is one of those rare variety films about which one can't discuss much despite a strong desire for it could hamper your viewing experience as an unappraised audience. It's a film one wants to rave liberally about but even then you can't conveniently converse on the instances of acclaim since those are the moments of surreptitious surprise held in reserve by the director. It's the kind of film that is discussed in detail once it acquires the cult status." He also gave it 4 stars out of 5.
Anupama Chopra of NDTV thought the film to be a "provocative theatre. Its message is urgent and relevant but also disturbing and dangerous." She also felt what it suggested was "implausible".
Box office
'A Wednesday!' grossed around Rs 120 million in India.[http://www.boxofficeindia.com/boxnewsdetail.php?page=shownews&articleid=4125&nCat= Boxofficeindia.com]. Boxofficeindia.com. Retrieved on 17 August 2013. The film had a distributor share of Rs 44,600,000 in India.[http://www.boxofficeindia.com/showPro8&catName=MjAwOA Boxofficeindia.com]. Boxofficeindia.com. Retrieved on 17 August 2013. It gave satisfying results to the producers, distributors and exhibitors. Boxofficeindia.com. Retrieved on 17 August 2013.
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Awards and nominations
Remakes
The film was remade into Tamil and Telugu. The Tamil version had Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal in lead roles, while the Telugu version had Kamal Haasan and Venkatesh in the lead.
UTV sold the rights of the film to Asia Media and Gemini Media, which remade it into 'A Common Man', starring Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross.
References
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