Tere Bin Laden
Dir: Abhishek Sharma
Starring : Ali Zafar, Pradhuman Singh, Rahul Singh, Piyush Mishra, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Sugandha Garg
Debutant writer/director Abhishek Sharma’s Tere Bin Laden is a low-budget but smart, funny farce (and thankfully far removed from the inane slapstick comedies which are all the rage in India these days). It follows intrepid Pakistani television reporter Ali (our own Ali Zafar) who, after being denied a visa many times, comes up with an audacious fake Osama Bin Laden tape to make enough cash to buy his way to the land of his desires, America.
Passport/immigration agency Lashkar-e-Amreeka (“proudly invading U.S. since 2002”) is the organisation which will arrange passage for him (some of their plans to get Ali to the U.S. are outrageously funny) if he can cough up enough cash for a fake passport. But Ali is perpetually a pauper and his dreams appear destined to fail until he happens upon an Osama look-alike in chicken-farmer Noora (Pradhuman Singh).
The movie zings along as Ali and his cohorts (the funniest of which is radio talk show host and budding communist Qureshi, played by Rahul Singh) put together the fake video with an unsuspecting Noora as their accomplice. Proceedings sag a bit once the video is released to unintended consequences and an alarmed America retaliates (typically overreacting) but luckily the movie is short enough for the laxness to not prove fatal. Overall, this is very much worth a look and funny to boot. The entire cast comes through with flying colours and Piyush Mishra as the miserly owner of Danka, a low-rent television channel, is excellent and shouldn’t be overlooked.
It’s a pity that local censors and politicos (who really need to get themselves a sense of humour) have seen fit to ban this movie in Pakistan. TBL may ruffle a few feathers but then satire is meant to do that and there is nothing particularly offensive here – not even for the USA which, after all, remains the ultimate goal for Ali.
Cut to chase: A short, smart sassy satirical farce. Check it out.
