Collar Bomb movie review: A noble goal mired in gaping loopholes and an over-complicated plot

Language: Hindi Sanawar is mourning the death of a child from the local community when a bomb-laden man enters a memorial meeting at her school. He reads out a religious quote easily identifiable with Islam and issues instructions to one of the men present in the hall, Manoj Kumar Hesi (Jimmy Sheirgill), a respected senior policeman. Hesi must execute certain tasks and thus play a role in defusing the bomb. It soon becomes clear that the entire operation is connected to the accolades Hesi received for a criminal investigation not too long back. Guns go off, people die, a Muslim businessman is targeted for having earlier employed the fellow who has now taken hostages at the school, Hesi races around town, his colleague ASI Sumitra Joshi (Asha Negi) is hot on his heels and a voice on the phone becomes a link to the past. Collar Bomb gets its name from the placement of the explosives on the human bomb in the story. At first, the unfolding plot generates some curiosity about where these goings-on are headed. An early confrontation between Joshi and a mob led by a politician is particularly well-executed and believable, bringing to mind a video that went viral on social media a couple of years back of a police officer named Gagandeep Singh saving a Muslim youth from an angry Hindu mob in Uttarakhand. Gradually though, the plot gets cluttered and over-complicated, the actions of the mysterious individual controlling the drama become random and self-defeating, and the cornerstone of the entire affair – the identity of the person on the phone and how they got to know of Hesi’s wrongdoings – turns out to be a giant-sized loophole. Director Dnyanesh Zoting (whose earlier credits include the Marathi film Raakshas and the Hindi web series Date with Saie) and writer Nikhil Nair set out with the noble goal of exposing confirmation bias pivoted on class and communal stereotypes prevalent in society. The person meting out punishment to Sanawar for its deep-seated biases is purportedly committed to marginalised and minority communities. Yet, as it turns out, this individual has no qualms about risking the lives of minority community members to get that point across. Zoting and Nair might do well to introspect about their own unconscious biases evident in the representation of minorities and the marginalised in their storyline. While Uttarakhand’s Gagandeep Singh is no doubt a reality, and the Indian Muslim community are indeed under siege, in a sense, in large parts of today’s India, to tell the story of that siege without giving any agency to the Muslim characters in your plot reeks of a saviour complex. The Muslims in Collar Bomb are plot devices, not people – one of them exists solely to be saved by ASI Joshi while the other is a tool in the hands of the protagonist whose aim, ironically, is to bust biases, never mind if the people against whom those biases exist become collateral damage in this mission. [caption id=“attachment_9793781” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Jimmy Sheirgill (left) and Asha Negi in a still from Collar Bomb. Image from Twitter[/caption] Meanwhile, there is only one Christian family in the entire universe of Collar Bomb, and (Spoiler alert in this sentence) the father is a child abuser, while the dialogues written for both parents are almost entirely in English. (Spoiler alert ends) The emphasis on English for them is particularly noticeable because Hesi addresses them in Hindi. _Sherni_ ’s Vidya Vincent is unusual and refreshing because of the near-absence of India’s Christian minority in Hindi cinema for decades now – so if your film features rare Christian characters, as Collar Bomb does, it begs the question why you would opt to make one of them a despicable villain of your piece. Two characters in this film are also written to fit the stereotype prevalent in north India of Christians as quasi-Westerners, a trope further perpetuated by pre-’90s Bollywood. Again, why? The confused politics of the film might have been given a pass if the mystery held up. It does not. The individual controlling Hesi on the phone has a video as ammunition against him. When that individual’s identity is revealed, the scenario in which the video was recorded is unconvincing and the person’s conduct in that scenario seems uncharacteristic considering their tendency to otherwise spontaneously intervene in dangerous situations. Besides, the person seems to have the magical ability to be in two places at the same time and other unexplained extraordinary talents. Collar Bomb is ultimately an example of good intentions not translating into good cinema. The film is lacking in several departments. The visual effects in the early scenes, when Hesi and his son (Naman Jain) are inside their car driving through the hills, are not up to the mark. And Sheirgill, that cute boy we all loved in Maachis, disappoints with a surface performance as Hesi. One joyous takeaway from Collar Bomb is Asha Negi. A Hindi TV star, Negi made her film debut in a brief role as Abhishek Bachchan’s character’s wife in Anurag Basu’s _Ludo_ last year. She lends so much substance, fire and conviction to ASI Sumitra Joshi that she – her character and her performance – remain the most memorable elements in Collar Bomb. Will the Nikhil Nair who wrote her with such finesse and the Dnyanesh Zoting who directed her with such confidence please raise their hands and tell us what went wrong with the rest of Collar Bomb? Rating: 1.75 (out of 5 stars) Collar Bomb is streaming on Disney+Hotstar