The Shootout At Lokhandwala team is back with Mission Istanbul. Director Apoorva Lakhia directs this film on terrorism. Vivek Oberoi, Zayed Khan, Nikitin Dheer (of Jodha Akbar fame) and Shabbir Ahluwalia form the lead cast. Suniel Shetty, Shriya Saran and Abhishek Bachchan have special appearances. Can the makers better their previous effort? Mission Istanbul is about Vikas Sagar (Zayed Khan) one of the best journalist from India, who accepts a 3 month assignment with Al-Johara, an extremely controversial Instanbul-based news channel. The assignment comes at a time when Vikas, undergoing divorce with his wife Anjali (Shriya Saran), is at an all-time personal low. Once in Istanbul, Vikas meets Ghazni (Nikitan Dheer), the owner of Al-Johara and Owais Shah (Suniel Shetty), who heads the news channel.
Owais Shah is killed on Vikas’s first assignment in Afghanistan. Enter Rizwan Khan (Vivek Oberoi), a Turkish commando, who informs him that his life is in danger. How the Indian Journalist along with Rizwan manages to survive the battle against Ghazni forms the rest of the tale.
Mission Istanbul Review
Mission Istanbul is filled with good action and stunts but what the movie completely lacks is logic. Certain scenes are tough to digest and quite a few of them look silly. Two men take on the whole of Istanbul, well almost. They jump around like spiderman, take on 5 – 10 men at a time and usually survive without a scratch. The scenes involving a George Bush look-a-like looks stupid to say the least. And how does the hero pass the hand detection system? Quite simple, he rips both hands of a security personnel and conveniently uses it on the system, easy ain’t it? A frustrated villain smashes LCD Monitors left right and center. The second half drags, so much that you hardly care about the climax.
The 2 item numbers are filled with sufficient skin show to please the front benchers. Oh yeah there is Abhishek Bachchan in one of them, he tries hard to dance but fails as always. The background music is irritating and at times so loud that the dialogues are inaudible. The cinematography is good. Dialogues are over the top.
Coming to the performances I liked Shabbir Ahluwalia the most, with few good roles he can go a long way. Vivek Oberoi is strangely not in form in a role that perfectly suited his style of acting. Zayed Khan can’t act to save his life! Nikitin Dheer, the villain of Jodhaa Akbar, needs to work on his dialogue delivery. It’s high time Shriya Saran gets a chance in meatier roles. She was wasted in Awarapan and here she hardly has a 10 minute role. Suniel Shetty is okay in a special appearance. Shweta Bhardwaj is hot but expressionless throughout.
Overall, Mission Istanbul is strictly for action lovers. Others don’t expect much. Performances are weak and so is the script. Don’t expect much at the box-office. Flop!
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