“In the name of God“ (Khuda Ke liye ) is a hard hitting movie from Pakistani cinema. The producer cum director must have got real courage. The story starts with a band rehearing for a music concert on a New Year eve in Lahore, Pakistan, is unexpectedly attacked by a mob of radical Islamist. After this attack there are some more instances which help in putting through different kind of radical views setting proper background for the movie. The movie start on the slower side with even starring seems never ending but quickly picks up the pace. The director had wasted no time in coming to the main subject, quickly winding up the inter-linkages between different characters.
The story revolves around a family holding moderate Islamic view where 2 boys (“Mansoor” & “Sarmad”) of the family wear “Jeans”, “T-shirt” and had taken up singing as their profession. Sarmad younger of the two goes to visit Masjid where he meets “Maulana Saab” and comes face to face with the “real” Islamic views on certain aspects. Believing on the face values of those views that guy starts getting closer to “real” Islam. On the other hand the second brother who sees religion more from a logical point proceeds towards USA to study music. Fate plays along and the brother with radical Muslim views marry her cousin sister, who is from London and is about to marry Dave (A Christian), without her consent under influence of “Maulana Saab”, while Mansoor falls in love with a Christian girl and gets married. In between all these 9/11 had happened and story takes more interesting turns. I will leave the story here for you to follow it on CD/DVD or online.
At the far end of the movie there appears two (Hard and moderate) distinct views of Islam on many aspects of universal living principles. Naseerud din Shah plays a hard hitting cameo role and delivers dialog which delve into Islamic sense of dressing, music, girls marrying outside Islam and many more. The reasoning backed by strong dialog delivery produces a mesmerizing effect.
On the acting front, it is average performance by everyone except Naseeruddin Shah which is awesome. The dialog writer has done good job, with the witty and hard hitting dialogs on every point in the movie.
Overall the movie is a good watch, with Nasseruddin cameo can be applauded multiple times.
