Omertà Movie Review: Spine-Chilling But Textbook Portrayal Of Terrorist Omar Sheikh!

Omertà - the word in Italian refers to how a member of the mafia must maintain silence in the wake of an arrest. In that sense, the word is true to the character of Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh on whose life Hansal Mehta's film Omertà is based. The dreaded terrorist who butchered journalist Daniel Pearl and was also involved in the 9/11 bombings in the US and also the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai, is played by Mehta's favourite actor Rajkummar Rao. How does the film pan out?

Well, to put it in a nutshell, one went expecting a lot from Omertà the film, considering the repertoire of Hansal Mehta. But what Omertà comes across is a textbook biography of Omar Sheikh aka Umar Sheikh / Sheikh Omar / Sheikh Syed. Mehta has portrayed the story of the terrorist with honesty and authenticity. It is very gory at times, spine-chilling and certainly not for the soft ones, and at other times simply reportage. But since this is a feature film biography and not a documentary of Discovery Channel on Omar Sheikh, one expected it to create magic.

Think Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005). The real story of an attack on sportspersons, and the revenge. And yet, it had such nuances and the emotional side of the people involved in the State-sponsored revenge attack. Of course, it was not from the point-of-view of the terrorists. But it was the story of the killers and especially the one who remains alive - Avner (Eric Bana) - and how the secret operation affects him and his family personally.

Mehta, too, could have taken that approach and made Omertà the film a bit longer to help us understand the story of Omar, rather his back story. What we see in 97 minutes (Munich was 2 hours, 44 minutes) is a sequence of events that can anyways be read about on the Internet. There may be some flashback but it is not convincing enough to show why Omar went astray. Surely something deeper affected him? Maybe something in his childhood or teenage? Or was it just the Bosnia crisis of Muslims and the Kashmir propaganda that was enough to make him take a leap of faith (pun not intended)? If he was a spy with Britain's MI6 while studying at the London School of Economics (LSE), did he get influenced by inside information? These questions could have been tackled instead of having a rushed approach.

Having said that, Omertà is interesting because of Rajkummar Rao's performance. He was good in changing his accent and body language, and was cold while committing the goriest of killings. But one has a feeling he needs to change his approach a bit to his characters - one could see bits of Newton in Omar.

Daniel Pearl's side of the story, one can say, can be watched better in A Mighty Heart(2007), starring Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Archie Punjabi and our own Irrfan Khan.

Verdict: Omertà has already wowed international audiences and it seems to have been made for the festival audience. For India, it could have been more dramatic. Maybe some shades of Shahid Kapoor's character in Haider. That actor would have internalised Omar Shaikh much better.

Rating: 3 / 5.