** There might be spoilers. **

First, it is a must-watch movie. Slick and fast-paced throughout and technically excellent. Brilliant for a debut director. To his credit, even though some suspense clears off halfway through the movie, you want to see how it ends.

As far as performances go, Naseeruddin Shah is first rate. Repeating for emphasis. First rate. Unless you identify with the protagonist in such a themed movie, you cannot identify with the ending. And for that, you have to give it to Naseeruddin Shah because right from the time he is that senior citizen filing a complaint in the police station, or he is that stranger you meet daily in the local, you know him, you have seen him. So when he says he is the common man, you can’t help but feel sorry that the director did not trust the veteran to get that message through without even stating it explicitly ! Anupam Kher is fine, although I am not sure why the character would call Naseer a bastard initially and why would he suddenly choose to let Naseer go. Oh and the 2 side characters who decide to turn around, unexpected, unnecessary and lame. And not to forget some loose ends about Naseer in the photograph, his acquaintance with the 4 convicts, if any, but these could be debatable as creative liberties.

Now for the message, the movie expectedly has struck a chord with the “common man”, as we like to identify ourselves, mostly because the common man in this movie does something that is impossible, and in this context impractical. In that sense, it is like those superhero movies. Although I really appreciated that ‘his’ (since the movie made his religion implicit) side of the story was presented, ‘his’ frustration at being sandwiched by fundamentalists at both ends. High time we realize that ‘he’ exists too, among the others. But the main reason I was disappointed with it at the end is that it is hardly even a plausible solution to a much larger and complex problem. Even though the audience would feel pumped up after the titles scroll, they would probably fear to hang around the crowded areas of the multiplex for too long.

And that is the “common man” we know.