Code Name Tiranga Has  Its Gripping Moments

Code Name: Tiranga

Written & Directed by Ribhu Dasgupta

Rating: *** ½

It is easy to be dismissive of a film that doesn’t break new ground,or doesn’t pretend  to.A  straightforward sharply-written film about a terrorist extraction gone wrong,  Code Name: Tiranga  packs  in quite  a punch  in the action sequences.

 Shot in  the rugged locations of Turkey, this is a  slowburn thriller.Writer-director Ribhu Dasgputa has  an  interesting track record . He started his directorial career with  the  intriguing Naseeruddin Shah vehicle  Michael  and went on to do the  riveting series Yudh with  Amitabh Bachchan.

 Code Name: Tiranga  misses  out on the strong  performances  of his earlier films. The  actors are authentic , many of them  local Turkish , others  veterans  of  Hindi cinema like Rajit Kapur and Shishir Mishra,  but never rising above the script at any  point.

The  real hero  in this film is the  cinematography  by Tribhuvan Babu Sadineni which  frames  the action sequences in hues of  heightened  heroism without  selfcongratulations.

 Dasgupta’s screenplay is  constantly  a step ahead  of  the  audiences’ expectations.  Portraying a very complicated  issue with no moral  demarcations, Parineeti Chopra falls short of expectations, as she had done earlier  in Dasgupta’s The Girl On  The Train . Nonetheless  it is  a  brave performance that requires her to wear  dangerous disguises in a film that breaks the rules even  while  reiterating  the  rules  of cinema about terrorism.

 The  love story  that  lies at the core of the  turbulent  plot could have done with  a bit more fleshing out. Harrdy Sandhu’s  Hindi debut is   a  bit  of  a cold  smoulder. Not lacking in intensity he loses  out in motivation and common sense. It is hard to imagine that any  man would marry  a foreigner without doing a thorough identity check on her.

The  glitches and  improbabilities  however do  not undermine the  film’s  overall  RAW  appeal. I suppose this is the  one  anti-terrorism story that  Ribhu Dasgupta wanted to get  out of his  system. I want to see what he  directs next.