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Do you remember where you were when those ill-fated planes crashed into the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001? Everyone does. It is to our generation what the Lennon assassination was to the one before us, and the Kennedy assassination to the one before that. Only, this is much graver…not just in magnitude, but in impact as well. It changed the world we live in, built boundaries between nations of disparate religions and made xenophobia the most common malaise afflicting humankind. It brought to the fore the inherent discrimination in our society, manifested most grotesquely in the racial profiling of the FBI in the USA and its detention of individuals perceived as suspects; and the human rights violating treatment meted out to them at these detention camps, most notoriously Guantanamo Bay.

Kabir Khan knows the significance of 9/11 which shocked, altered and distorted humanity as we know it. So to anyone who suggests that the film shouldn’t only be looked at from that point of view, and be appreciated as some Bond-type thriller (which it is not by a mile…and more!), my retort is this- It’s a film called New York (not very subtle, are we?) for crying out loud, with the 9/11 and the subsequent paranoia as the key event and fuel to the narrative. So pardon me, if I choose to look at the movie seriously (not very bright either, are we?).

Coming back to my first question, we all remember where we were when we first heard news of the attack on the Twin Towers. We all reacted with shock and horror…not knowing how the event would affect our existence. In retrospect of course, I’m willing to concede that some, in Hawthornian wisdom of a family destroying what it stands for only to regroup much more strongly, even felt that it was necessary. Necessary enough to bring the change, we needed! And yet, in Kabir Khan’s surprisingly inert film, the three lead characters react with little to no emotion to the incident. To be more specific, the answer to my first question to Neil Mukesh’s character Omar (looking kinda like apna Umair!) would be- On the morning of 9/11, I was busy nursing a heartbreak having realized that the girl I loved and thought loved me, loved an alpha-male friend instead. How did he react to it? With indifference! And that is my problem with Kabir Khan’s New York- a film that wants to be important, tries to be important…but does so, indifferently. And more ridiculously, ignorantly and childishly.

So the mighty FBI tracks down Omar, who now lives the American dream plying taxis, and force him to infiltrate back into the lives of the girl he loved, Maya (Katrina Kaif, perfectly cast) and the alpha-male she chose over him, Sameer (John Abraham). The FBI seems to believe that the once American patriot Sameer aka Sam (see, not very subtle!), now operates a sleeper terrorist cell. You see, they need evidence to arrest Sameer, else they risk the NGOs and HRAs getting after them for wrongful prosecution…something they cannot afford. So far, so good. Omar, after throwing some puzzling tantrums without any bargaining chip whatsoever, reenters the lives of Maya and Sameer and their kid. This is where the problem begins, and they slowly begin to pile up.

After an excruciatingly long initiation ritual, where Omar tries to desperately show off his mean & violent side to Sameer so that he enlists him in his outfit (all the while hoping that Sameer isn’t what the FBI says he is) and John presents a more-than-noble personality, Omar is finally revealed of Sameer’s truth and his intentions. The back-story to Sam becoming Sameer is that post 9/11, he was wrongfully detained and subjected to the most inhuman and ghastly of tortures, leaving him a shell of a man shattered and disillusioned with the country he once loved. It is not until he has ‘the best brown bread in New York’ (see it to believe it!) that he starts living again, with a purpose- to reclaim his honour, his life…even at the cost of his life. Neither Omar, nor the director, see the sad irony in losing one’s life to reclaim it. Instead, in an ill-written scene, Omar argues that after being through what Sam had been anyone would turn a terrorist, and Irrfan Khan’s FBI cop’s pathetic rejoinder is that “Nothing, absolutely nothing justifies terrorism”. Duh! I knew that (not really insightful, are we?). But what is the cost of gross misconduct and injustice? The film doesn’t bother tackling such moralistic dilemmas, and instead somewhere down the line turns into a corny mush-fest with characters who obviously can’t think beyond themselves.

So you have Katrina Kaif’s Maya, who knows that her husband is a terrorist, but chooses not to confront him and continues living with him and their child hoping that he’d change. This, while he’s busy bumping off people and planning an attack on an important NY site…and she’s trying to seek justice for another detention-survivor. And she has the gall to ask Omar if he intends harm to Sameer when she learns he’s working undercover for the FBI! And you have Sameer, who in his final moments claims that he is not anti-US, but only anti-FBI. Yes, Mr Kabir Khan, you’ve solved the mystery. The real villain is the FBI! But wait, we are later told, rather simplistically, that the real villain is the time- “Sab apni apni jagah sahi hain, bas wqat galat hai!”

Even if one were to pardon such quick-fix platitudes and fortune cookie solutions, how do you overlook the loopholes? The FBI digs deep into Sameer’s life and finds a friend that they can plant back into his life, but has nobody tailing him or Omar. More laughably, the contract to clean the windows of the FBI building lands up in Sameer’s hands and he hatches a plot to bring it down while the FBI goes around panicking about which building he’s about to attack. And the same FBI which went to great lengths of planting a mole so as to get evidence and not risk HRAs, shoots down not just Sameer, but his innocent wife Maya even. Puh-leese…we are celebrating such lazy writing now.

So what is New York? It’s not a serious political film, it’s got no social insight, it’s not a documentary, it’s not a thriller and it’s not a buddy film. It’s not even a bad film actually. It’s a film…that I’m just…well, indifferent to! And even though that might be apt in this case, it’s never a good thing for a film that wants to be so much more.

I suggest you watch the infinitely superior Pakistani film Khuda Kay Liye, based on the same premise, to see how one can make both an engaging and insightful film on the subject- one of the most important episodes of our generation. In a few years time, I don’t think I’ll even remember where I saw New York, let alone when.