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Wazir (film)

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Genre
  
Crime, Drama, Mystery

Music director
  
Shantanu Moitra

Country
  
India

Director
  
Bejoy Nambiar

Production companies
  
Rajkumar Hirani

Language
  
Hindi English

Wazir (film) movie poster
Writer
  
Abhijat Joshi
,
Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Release date
  
4 December 2015 (2015-12-04)

Release date
  
September 11, 2015 (India)

Written by
  
Abhijat Joshi, Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Cast
  
Amitabh Bachchan
,
Farhan Akhtar
,
Aditi Rao Hydari

Similar movies
  
Amitabh Bachchan appears in Wazir and Piku

Wazir (English: Vizier) is a 2016 Indian crime thriller film directed by Bejoy Nambiar and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Written and edited by Abhijat Joshi and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar in the lead roles alongside Aditi Rao Hydari, Manav Kaul and Neil Nitin Mukesh in supporting roles. John Abraham has a special appearance in the film.

Contents

The film tells the story of two unusual friends, a wheelchair-bound chess player and a grief-stricken Anti-Terrorism Squad officer, who are brought together by a twist of fate as part of a wider conspiracy. Principal photography began on 28 September 2014 in Mumbai. The film was released worldwide on 8 January 2016. The film collected worldwide 44.27 crore (US$6.9 million) and was the first hit movie of 2016.

Plot

Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officer Daanish Ali (Farhan Akhtar) lives a blissful life with his wife Ruhana (Aditi Rao Hydari) and little daughter Noorie. One day, while Daanish is driving with Noorie, he spots a known terrorist, Farooq Rameez and chases him. Noorie is killed in the ensuing shootout while Rameez escapes. Ruhana is shattered and blames Daanish for Noorie's death. Daanish later kills Rameez during a police operation, angering the ATS bosses, who wanted Rameez alive to find out which politician he was going to meet.

A grief-stricken Daanish is about to kill himself at Noorie's grave when a mysterious van appears, driving off when Daanish yells at it. Daanish finds a wallet lying where the van was, goes to return it, and meets its owner, a wheelchair-bound chess master named Pandit Omkar Nath Dhar (Amitabh Bachchan), who tells him he was Noorie's chess teacher. Pandit starts teaching Daanish chess and tells him about his own late daughter Nina, who used to teach chess to Ruhi (Mazel Vyas), the daughter of Welfare Minister Yazaad Qureshi (Manav Kaul). Nina mysteriously slipped down the stairs at Qureshi's house, dying. Pandit is convinced this was not an accident. Intrigued, Daanish tries to meet Qureshi, but police officers at his office threaten Daanish with arrest. Pandit meets Ruhana and asks her to help his class of children complete a drama that Nina wrote. Daanish meets Qureshi's daughter Ruhi at her school and asks her about Nina, but Ruhi is taken away. Qureshi threatens Ruhi for talking to Daanish. Pandit is later brutally attacked by Wazir (Neil Nitin Mukesh), an assassin sent by Qureshi, who warns Pandit and Daanish to stop chasing Qureshi.

Pandit leaves for Kashmir, where Qureshi is headed. Wazir calls Daanish and threatens to kill Pandit. Daanish frantically chases Pandit's van but Wazir blows it up, killing Pandit. Determined to exact revenge and discover who Wazir is, Daanish makes a plan with the SP (John Abraham). During Qureshi's speech, the SP detonates explosives, causing panic, and holds off police, giving Daanish time. Daanish breaks into Qureshi's room and demands to know where Wazir is. Qureshi claims he doesn't know anybody called Wazir. Crying, Ruhi reveals to Daanish that Qureshi is not her father - he is actually one of the militants who massacred her entire village and posed as her father when Indian Army troops arrived. Ruhi had told Nina this, so Qureshi killed Nina. Daanish realizes that Rameez and the other terrorists had come to meet Qureshi, and shoots him dead.

A few days later, while watching Pandit's drama by the kids, Daanish realizes the truth: Pandit was in fact the play's 'weak pawn' who befriended a 'strong rook' (Daanish) who would kill a 'wicked king' (Qureshi). Shocked, Daanish finds Pandit's housekeeper, who says that she didn't actually see Wazir on the night he attacked Pandit. She gives Daanish a USB pen-drive which Pandit had told her to give Daanish if he came looking for 'Wazir.' In the pen-drive is a video of Pandit explaining what he did: Wazir actually never existed. He was just a persona created by Pandit, who knew that due to his handicap, he was powerless against Qureshi. Pandit intentionally dropped his wallet near Noorie's grave so Daanish could find it and befriend him. Pandit's knife wounds from Wazir's "attack" were self-inflicted and he had used voice recordings to pose as Wazir on the phone. Pandit knew that he would have to sacrifice himself to ensure that Daanish would kill Qureshi and get revenge for both of them. Shaken by the revelation, Daanish and Ruhana reunite.

Cast

  • Amitabh Bachchan as Pandit Omkar Nath Dhar
  • Farhan Akhtar as Daanish Ali
  • Aditi Rao Hydari as Ruhana Ali
  • Manav Kaul as Yazaad Qureshi
  • Neil Nitin Mukesh as Wazir
  • John Abraham as SP (Special Appearance)
  • Prakash Belawadi as DCP
  • Anjum Sharma as Sartaj Singh, Daanish's colleague
  • Nassir Quazi as Rameez
  • Murali Sharma as Mahesh
  • Nishigandha Wad as Ruhaana's mother
  • Seema Bhargava as Pammi, the Pandit's housekeeper
  • Avtar Gill as G.B. Singh, police commissioner
  • Mazel Vyas as Ruhi
  • Gargi Patel as Ruhi's minder
  • Development

    The idea of Wazir came to Vidhu Vinod Chopra after badminton player Syed Modi was murdered on 28 July 1988 in Lucknow. However, Chopra claims that this film is completely different from the incident. When Chopra met his writer Abhijat Joshi in 1994, he told him about the idea of setting a thriller around two chess players. The title of the film had gone through several changes including Fifth Move, 64 Squares and Chess being some of them. Later, between 2000 and 2004, they both wrote it in English. It was supposed to be Chopra's first Hollywood film, with Dustin Hoffman playing the protagonist. In 2005, their producer Robert Newmyer suddenly died. The script of Wazir took five years to complete. Then Chopra saw the black-and-white portions of Bejoy Nambiar's David (2013), which he liked. Later Chopra recalls: "I called him (Bejoy), and I have an almari (Cupboard) full of scripts, so I opened it and asked him ‘Which one? He picked this one. Then we worked for two more years on it."

    The working title of the film was Do, which was changed to Wazir in October 2014. Both Chopra and Joshi consulted chess experts from America for the film. The cinematography of the film is done by Sanu Varghese, who had previously worked with Nambiar in David. The films story was tweaked constantly during its seven-month editing period. This is the first film edited by Chopra after his directorial venture Parinda (1989). Joshi, who is also first time editor of this film, believed that "a film is rewritten on the editing table." Visual effects were used to hide Bachchan's leg, and to make him look disabled. The wheelchair on which he sits throughout the film was chosen among 40 to 50 wheelchairs. When Neil Nitin Mukesh was offered the role, the film was titled Ek Aur Ek Do, which was later changed by Chopra to Wazir; based on the character name of Neil Nitin Mukesh in it.

    Casting

    At the screening of Lakshya (2004), Chopra informed Farhan Akhtar about the script of Wazir, and wanted his feedback on that. The next time they met him in 2014, after which Akhtar heard the script and agreed to do the film. He went through intense training and put on eight kilograms of weight to play the role of an Anti Terrorist Squad officer. He also changed his diet and met some of his friends who were ATS officers for the preparation. Akhtar agreeing for the role puzzled Chopra, who recalls: "At that time, Javed Akhtar (Farhan’s father) and I were engaged in a public verbal duel. When I asked Farhan what made him agree to take up the role, he said, ‘The script is so good that I will bear with you". The film’s scale kept growing by time when it was being written, and Chopra recalls: "We realised the protagonist can’t be American. We had to bring in our own sensibilities. Our cinema is more flamboyant. So the protagonist needed to be flamboyant too. We thought of making the chess master an Indian and approached [Amitabh] Bachchan for it". Bachchan had also read the original script 12 years ago, but remembered it when Chopra mentioned. Aditi Rao Hydari was cast after Nambiar saw her pictures when she had walked the ramp for a designer and Chopra saw her dancing. Post this, she went through three set of auditions: dance, acting and a look test. John Abraham and Neil Nitin Mukesh make extended cameo appearances in the film.

    Filming

    Principal photography commenced on 28 September 2014 in Mumbai. Parts of the film were also shot in Delhi. Few scenes in the film were improvised on the set, including a joke about the Russian vodka and Russian girls between Bachchan and Akhtar. Akhtar did his own stunts in the film. He completed his schedule in March at Srinagar, while Bachchan filmed his last remaining scenes in April, 2015.

    Soundtrack

    The film's soundtrack album was composed by various artists: Shantanu Moitra, Ankit Tiwari, Advaita (band), Prashant Pillai, Rochak Kohli, and Gaurav Godkhindi. The background score was composed by Rohit Kulkarni while the lyrics were penned by Chopra, Swanand Kirkire, A. M. Turaz, Manoj Muntashir and Abhijeet Deshpande. The album rights of the film were acquired by T-Series. The first single track "Tere Bin" released on 4 December 2015. The video focuses on Farhan Akhtar and Aditi Rao Hydari; the song is sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal and composed by Shantanu Moitra, with lyrics penned by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The second single track, "Tu Mere Pass", composed and sung by Ankit Tiwari with lyrics by Manoj Muntashir, was released on 11 December 2015. The third single track, "Maula Mere Maula", was released on 18 December 2015. The song was composed by Shantanu Moitra, sung by Javed Ali and written by Chopra and Swanand Kirkire. The song "Khel Khel Mein" was composed by Advaita in the band's first motion picture.

    Release

    ABC

    Critical reception

    The Indian Express gave the film 2.5/5 stars, saying, "Watching Farhan Akhtar and Amitabh Bachchan joust and manoeuver around each other is this film’s high point". Behindwoods gave it 2.5/5 stars, saying,"The chessmaster fails to checkmate the critics". The first post mentions, "If first impressions are the lasting impressions, then Bejoy Nambiar's Wazir gets it right from the outset". The Hindustan times gave the film 3/5 stars, saying, "In a remarkable deviation from the typical Bollywood style, Wazir’s characters do not delve into the sadistic pleasure of avenging a wrong but concentrate on the final target". Subhash K. Jha gave it 4/5 stars, saying, "In its 1 hour and 40 minutes of playing-time Wazir gives us no time to stop and ruminate." Magic Of Bollywood gave the film 3/5 stars, calling it 'A gutsy attempt at a film which keeps you engaged for the most part, Farhan Akhtar and Amitabh Bachchan deliver.'

    References

    Wazir (film) Wikipedia
    Wazir (film) IMDb