Omerta (2017)

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Director: Hansal Mehta

Starring: Rajkummar Rao, Rajesh Tailang, Blake Allan, Keval Arora

Genre: Action, Biography, Crime

Released on: 04 May 2018

Writer: Mukul Dev (story), Hansal Mehta

IMDB Rating: 7.3/10 (260 Votes)

Duration: 96 min

Synopsis: A recounting of the story of infamous British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who kidnapped and murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.
 Rajkummar Rao ('Newton') plays the cold-blooded British terrorist Omar Sheikh, famed for kidnappings, financing 9/11 and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, in Hansal Mehta’s thriller.

Why do the best-crafted portraits of evil miscreants never get to the crux of what led them to become terrorists, murderers and serial killers? What one wants to know most is why British-born, well-educated Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence in Pakistan, left the comfort of the middle class for the darkness of terrorism. Hansel Mehta’s biopic of the dangerous sociopath, Omerta, closed the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival with a bang. It's a gripping thriller about a brilliant career assassin, but leaves the audience no more enlightened about the protagonist’s motives than a TV newscast.

While the film may not reveal much about what goes on in a terrorist's mind, it is ably made and pushes all the right thriller buttons to keep the audience glued. In addition, Sheikh's connection to Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks, and his conviction for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl a few months later, give the story a compelling hook for international audiences.

Michael Winterbottom’s 2007 A Mighty Heart, which centered on a memorable Angelina Jolie as Daniel Pearl’s widow, is probably Sheikh’s most well-known cinematic outing up to now, though he does appear as a character in Mehta’s own 2012 Shahid. Here, he is shown rising through native intelligence and sangfroid to kingpin status in terrorist organizations like the Kashmiri Harkat-ul-Ansar and al-Qaeda. This may give him more credit than is his due, as doubts have arisen about his real role in the attacks linked to his name.

Mehta’s regular star Rajkummar Rao plays the cool-headed, multilingual terrorist as a sinister boy-next-door. Bristling with chillingly amorality, Rao is unrecognizable as the same actor who portrayed the high-principled vote collector in Newton, India’s foreign-language film Oscar submission this year. The intro scenes fly by, briefly suggesting his privileged, preppy life in England beside a concerned but ineffectual father. He claims to have been radicalized on a trip to Bosnia during the war (not shown), when he was exposed to atrocities against his Muslim brothers.

Leaving England for his first test mission in India, he picks up three British backpackers in New Delhi and entices them back to his place for a chess game, adding an American woman for good measure. Once they’re inside, the tourists are dismayed to find themselves hostages with guns pointed at them and their fear, pitiful to watch, makes it a very effective scene.

As insidious and highly persuasive as Omar is, he’s not a very skillful kidnapper, and the police soon turn up to free the prisoners. He’s shot trying to escape. His first stint in jail, where he is tortured, doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest; in fact, it brings out the mafia don in him — an icy, violent quality that makes others fear and respect him. He gets released in an exchange for the hostages on a skyjacked Air India flight and is soon back in action.

Aditya Warrior’s editing jumps around to follow his progress as he works his way up the ranks. Omar is tight with the Pakistan secret service and becomes an agent for them; later he’s seen recruiting young men to fight for Islam. He appears bearded and sporting gold-rimmed glasses In an Afghan training camp out of hell, where recruits show their fervor by jumping off mountains to their death as the survivors applaud. His hair-trigger temper is more prominent now, along with a streak of uncontrollable violence.

By 2000 he's a leader in Karachi and married to a trophy wife. The British link him to a money transfer to Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 hijacker. Then comes the kidnapping of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter. Played by Timothy Ryan Hickernell as noble but naïve, he walks into a trap that stinks to high heaven. The film’s key scene is his murder, in which Omar appears as a blood-thirsty madman who wields the fatal sword himself. Like other major moments in the film, the tension is heightened by Ishaan Chhabra’s thrilling, portentous score.

The Italian word omerta, used mainly in connection with the mafia, refers to the attitude of ordinary people who look the other way and don’t betray the criminals. It’s a bit of a stretch to connect it to this story, except insofar as Omar appears to be part of a vast international terrorist network that protects its own. Ironically, though promised high-level military protection in Pakistan, he was tried and sentenced to death for Pearl’s murder, which was commuted to life imprisonment. But even from jail he managed to wreak havoc, making two hoax calls on a smuggled cellphone that almost brought India and Pakistan to war.

Production companies: Swiss Entertainment
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Rajesh Tailang, Blake Allan, Keval Arora, Nisha Geoege, Asif Gillani, Timothy Ryan Hickernell, Ravi Khanna
Director-screenwriter: Hansal Mehta
Producers: Nahid Khan, Shailesh Singh
Executive producer: Jai Mehta, Shanaab Alam
Director of photography: Anuj Rakesh Dhawan
Production designers: Indranil Chowdhury, Payal Ghose
Editor: Aditya Warrior
Music: Ishaan Chhabra
Casting: Rachita Kapoor
Venue: Mumbai Film Festival (closing film)
World sales: Filmkaravan

Hansal Mehta’s latest feature dramatizes the life of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a notorious real-life terrorist long behind bars — which hasn’t stopped him from being involved in various attacks, purportedly including 9/11. The compelling “Omertà,” whose title is an Italian term for a criminal code of honor that encompasses absolute non-cooperation with legal authorities, cobbles together speculation with what is known about the many-alias’d Saeed, a 43-year-old British national of Pakistani heritage who has been at the forefront of fundamentalist Islamic terror for nearly a quarter-century.

At the end of this slickly mounted film, there’s no lack of questions still dangling nor hoped-for insights that fail to arrive. Nonetheless, while you’re watching it, Mehta’s freely imagined biopic provides a fascinating Rorschach of a figure who is, unfortunately, truly a man for our times.

Scrambling chronology, Mehta and co-scenarist Mukul Dev lead off with an incident sure to grab Western viewers’ attention: In 1994, the young but already fervently committed Saeed utilizes his considerable skills as a multi-linguist and sociopathic actor to ingratiate himself with three British men and one American woman, all tourists in New Delhi. They find themselves held captive, their lives threatened if the Indian government fails to release 10 militants imprisoned in the fight for Kashmir independence. Perhaps because the hostages survive unharmed (though one perp and two policemen died in a shootout), this is one of the few crimes Saeed has actually confessed to.
The London-born terrorist — played with steely conviction by Hindi thesp Rajkummar Rao — is also glimpsed in a series of globe-trotting episodes detailing actions he hasn’t necessarily copped to in real life. (He’s been imprisoned in Pakistan for years, yet continues to be linked to various criminal plots, presumably given an excess of communicative liberty by Pakistani authorities.) The most notorious event in which Saeed was purportedly involved was the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, played here by Timothy Ryan Hickernell. Mehta and Dev portray a particular version of this much-debated incident that fully involves Saeed, yet absolves him of the worst speculated abuses.

The earliest flashbacks from the protagonist’s young-adult days show an apparent political fervency, yet offer little insight into how he got that way. Repetitive scenes involving his appalled bourgeoise father certainly provide no clue. Saeed is married off to a trophy wife by the Pakistan government for services rendered, but the relationship is drawn in sketchy, remote terms. We get it: He’s a cold fish. Nonetheless, “Omertà” doesn’t penetrate deep enough to provide a resonant portrait of sociopathy. Nor does it spell out the specifics of Saeed’s political or (particularly) religious convictions.

Yet the film is taut throughout, an expertly staged thriller about a baffling paradox of a real-world man. Ishaan Chhabra’s original score tries to thrust conventional genre suspense beats on a convoluted story that shrugs them off yet fascinates anyway. In all other tech/design departments, this is an Indian feature unusually attuned to Western tastes.

Toronto Film Review: 'Omertà'

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation), Sept. 12, 2017. Running time: 96 MIN.

Production: (India) A Swiss Entertainment and Karma Features production. (International sales: Filmkaravan, Cupertino, Calif.) Producers: Nahid Khan, Shailesh Singh. Executive producers: Jai Mehta, Shanaab Alam.

Crew: Director: Hansal Mehta. Screenplay: Mehta, Mukul Dev. Camera (color, HD): Anuj Rakesh Dhawan. Editor: Aditya Warrior. Music: Ishaan Chhabra.

With: Rajkummar Rao, Kewal Arora, Timothy Ryan Hickernell, Rupinder Nagra, Rajesh Tailang. (Hindi, English, Urdu dialogue.)
Omerta Story: A biographical drama on Omar Saeed Sheikh – a British-born terrorist of Pakistani origin, who was responsible for the kidnapping of foreign tourists in India, including the abduction and execution of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Omerta Review: Filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who is known for making films with emotional depth like 'Shahid', 'City Lights' and 'Aligarh', has undoubtedly found an interesting subject that can make for a compelling story. Mehta keeps ‘Omerta’ realistic by including documentary-style footage, but the scope of the film is relegated to just that – watching bone-chilling crimes without much of an emotional connection. His latest is like a three-act play; each act elaborates upon one of Omar’s terrorist missions to accomplish his nefarious goals. The film is gripping, not because of the narrative, but because you are keen to know more about its protagonist.

Then there’s Rajkummar Rao, who nails the part as the dreaded terrorist Omar Sheikh. From switching his stiff British upper lipped enunciations to a desi accent, or wearing a nonchalant smile while being arrested – Rajkummar has given a nuanced performance catching every beat of Omar’s chilling demeanour. Although there is not much scope for other actors to shine beside him, Timothy Ryan Hickernell as Daniel Pearl matches Rajkummar’s intensity in a few scenes.

The one sequence that stands out in 'Omerta' is the cold-blooded execution of Daniel Pearl. For the rest of Omar’s actions, the fear and dread are conveyed through high-decibel sound effects. This film had the potential to shake you to your core with the thought that people like Omar exist in the world. Instead, Hansal Mehta focuses on just the ideological aspects of the character, choosing not to delve into what makes him tick. The director has not invested much screentime into how Omar plans his complex actions or what drove him to such abhorrence. So while Mehta gets the mood right, and Rajkummar works wonders with his limited material, 'Omerta' fails to stir you emotionally.
Omerta: (among the Mafia) A code of silence about criminal activity and a refusal to give evidence to the police.

Hansal Mehta’s Omerta is not about the Italian mafia, or any code of silence. Its name, perhaps, is a play on the name of its central character, British terrorist of Pakistani origin Omar Saeed Shaikh. He is not the hero, he can never be. One of the most dreaded terrorists whose name is inextricably linked to IC-814 hijacking and the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, he is no hero. He remains, however, Omerta’s lone focus with every other shot capturing him. With the film, director Hansal Mehta attempts to peek inside the mind of a terrorist, a murderer, without humanising him, with Rajkummar Rao bravely playing a man who continues to be linked to multiple crimes against humanity.

Mehta follows his subject as he begins his career of crime. A scene right in the beginning establishes Omar’s cruel mind and a pitiless heart. With censors deeming the scene too grotesque for Indian audience, what we see is a black screen and urgent, helpless cries.

From there on, Omerta moves back and forth in time, giving us glimpses of Omar’s training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, his first meeting with an ISI officer, a top Al qaida leader, apart from his time in Tihar jail in India. The movie delves into some of his crimes and just touches upon others -- the failed kidnapping of tourists in Kashmir, his involvement in 9/11, the the Taj terror attack and journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder.

Mehta bravely reiterates the religious fanaticism that leads to such radicalism. He also places a Muslim cleric, an ISI officer and the Pakistani government deftly as the propagators of terror.

The biggest challenge while making a film on a negative character is to not get vacuumed into the criminal mind. The danger of justifying criminal acts while trying to make sense of them is always there. Omerta does not fall into the trap - mainly because Mehta and Rao conscious decision not to do so, but also because the film fails to go beyond the three major incidents in Omar’s life.
Who is Omar Saeed Sheikh, the terrorist Rajkummar Rao plays in Omerta?

That is also where the movie disappoints. It never shows why an educated man drops out of London School of Economics to take up the violent path of ‘Jihad’. We never get a portrait of Omar’s mind with the director focusing more on events rather than intentions and ideology.

With ample use of real, news footage from these incidents, Hansal gives a documentary feel to the film. At no point does the film try to dig deep into the terrorist’s psyche or his surroundings.

Perhaps, the fact that little is known about Omar Shaikh Saeed in the public space is the reason behind this approach.

There are, of course, a few mentions of how the system, police and even the public have certain religion-based perceptions. For example, when Omar tells a cop his name is Rohit Verma, the police officer stares at him suspiciously and says, “Mulla lag raha hai.” The cop even goes on to say, “Kyu, bura laga? Biwi Muslim hai kya?”

You can’t justify what Omar does, says Rajkummar Rao on Omerta

Omar’s handlers and trainers often remind him (and, the audience) that their ‘cause’ needs a well-educated man like him. One person even goes on to tell him, “Jihad ko tumhare jaise padhe likhe logo ki zarurat hai. Anpadh ganwar Jihadiyon ki koi izzat nahi karta. Lekin jab logo ko pata chalega ki tumhare jaisa foreign-educated insaan humare saath hai, tum hero ban jaoge.”

With crisp editing and a runtime of 97 minutes, the film never lets you lose attention and the gripping narrative style ensures you are on the edge throughout. Rao proves his mettle once again as he smoothly gets into his cold character who can switch accents and personalities with equal ease – and does it all for the sole purpose of serving the ‘holy war’. The actor makes us believe he is the terrorist who turns into a meek guide for tourists, drinks milk as they chug beer and aims a gun at them in just the next moment. The silences and close-ups that Omerta uses to showcase Omar’s cold character and flinty stares establish his chops as an actor.

As the film does not delve much into the particular subject’s personal life, it becomes more of a larger comment on communal hatred and the futility of religion when it is used to propagate violence and evil purposes.





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