Phantom review: Will the real Kabir Khan please stand up?

Director Kabir Khan’s Phantom explores familiar territory — Indo-Pakistan relations, with a deep, and not always obvious bhai-bhai streak. This has been his obsession, one way or another, and has been the terrain of Kabul Express, New York, Ek Tha Tiger, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and now Phantom.

In sharp contrast to his sentimental, comic, humanity-above-religions-and-borders Bajrangi Bhaijaan, the box-office blaster starring Salman Khan that released just over a month ago, Phantom is a vigilante and jingoistic film with a bump-‘em-off message. Will the real Kabir Khan please stand up?

I have my reservations about vigilante justice, regardless of how worthy the cause seems. Phantom is adapted from Hussain Zaidi’s book Mumbai Avengers. India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) picks a disgraced ex-Indian Army officer Daniyal Khan (Saif Ali Khan), who has “disappeared” and grabs a chance to redeem himself by eliminating the masterminds of the 26/11 Mumbai bombings of 2008, in which 166 were killed. Otherwise, it seems they are unlikely to get the justice they deserve.

Because when India is attacked, says a RAW agent, “hum sirf cricket khelna band karte hain.” So RAW has the Mumbai attack masterminds, including Sajid Mir, David Headley and “Haaris” Saeed eliminated one by one, on different continents — by a single man, Daniyal Khan. At least Bollywood’s wish fulfilling fantasies can be relied on to deliver justice, albeit via a rather wishy-washy operative.

Although the story is straightforward, the screenplay by Kabir Khan and Parveez Sheikh is fidgety as a water beetle, and sometimes makes it hard to keep track of multiple, barely etched characters, as the action keeps hurtling between London, Chicago, Beirut, Lahore and Mumbai. Accomplished actors Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Rajesh Tailang are squandered in small roles.

The cinematography by Aseem Mishra is competent if frenzied, while Aarif Sheikh’s editing is too lax — at two hours 27 minutes, Phantom struggles to be engrossing — and also lapses into attention-deficit mode. There’s plenty of hot wheels, bomb explosions, machine gun fire, fast-cut editing and electro music to rack up the tension, but it can’t save the film.

The pace picks up in the second half, when Daniyal closes in on his quarry in Pakistan, and RAW and ISI play spy versus spy via him. The relentless pace also keeps you from asking too many questions, such as why is Daniyal so easily disgraced for being brave, instead of being given a medal? How come he sails into Pakistan, already knowing everybody he needs to know? Why make your heroine a Parsi woman in London only to call her Nawaz (Katrina Kaif?

Saif Ali Khan literally plays Phantom, the masked avenger. In that, he’s wearing a single-expression mask throughout. Kaif kicked far more butt in Ek Tha Tiger. Here, her “security consultant” role is in effect a Barbie hanger-on, relieved she can speak Hindi with a foreign accent. As Amina Bi, the mother of a Pakistani suicide bomber, Sohaila Kapur shines in a much smaller, but more daring and memorable role. For a film whose sole agenda is vigilante justice, the script doesn’t do the film a favour by handing out both the good guys – Daniyal from India and Amina Bi from Pakistan — and the terrorist masterminds the same fate.

Again, given that the chemistry between the leads is ekdum thanda, the Titanic-style climax renders a poignant moment rather risible. Ek Tha Tiger was so much more fun and cool, with Indian and Pakistani agents who appreciate that love is better than war, and decide to fall off the map.

Remarkably, and to Kabir Khan’s credit, not once does he make terrorism a religious issue. In fact, he underlines how families of both perpetrators and victims, suffer on both sides of the border — and unite against terrorism. In a pleasant, populist post-script, Kabir Khan has Nawaz, whose dad used to treat her to tea and pastries at the Taj Mahal Hotel, have a chai along the sea wall outside the hotel.

The film has stray moments of humour, often taking swipes at social media: the RAW bosses pick ‘Phantom’ as he has no Facebook page; someone complains that Haaris Saeed has a $10million bounty on his head, yet he roams free and is on Twitter!

Full disclosure: I have to admit that The Forgotten Army, Kabir Khan’s early documentary on Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army, was so remarkable and deeply affecting, that I can forgive him anything he has made subsequently, including Phantom.

And by the way, Kabir, could you please share the secret of how to make those loud microphones go bust? With a series of festivals waiting to shatter our eardrums, we would be eternally grateful.

The author is South Asia Consultant to the Berlin Film Festival, award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.