

Till just the other day, I believed that the Ram Gopal Varma production, James, was the last word in blood and gore. And then came Zinda to introduce me to new heights of cinematic violence. I haven't seen Sanjay Gupta's inspiration, Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy, but many reliable DVD-watcher friends tell me Zinda is a frame-by-frame rigorously faithful lift, save the end where Gupta conveniently drops the incest angle for the benefit of Indian tastes.
Which takes the shine away from whatever merits I would have noticed in Zinda. For once, unlike James, the ceaseless violence and barbarism here is backed by a wisp of an interesting (though derived) idea and characters. It has been gloriously shot in moody monotones, makes great use of the Bangkok topography and also has a nice soundtrack, particularly the Zinda Hoon number from the Pakistani band Strings. Baljeet Roy (Sanjay Dutt) has been put in solitary confinement for 14 years by a strange, unknown enemy. All he has in his cell is a TV for company which takes him through the passage of time, as the current events get covered on it—from the Kargil war to the tsunami. He is regularly given fried wontons to eat, thrice every day (which is enough reason to die but Dutt survives somehow), is kept in good shape through regular grooming rituals and is even saved when he attempts suicide. Then one fine day, he gets released, takes the help of cabbie Jenny (Lara Dutta) to trace his bete noir who turns out to be an old schoolmate. And guess what eventually leads him to the enemy? The smell of those fried wontons. Dutt is in nice form as he swings between anger and torment and despair, Abraham passes off his cool-dude act for the diabolical. Rest is all about bloody encounters. Even the love-making is tortuous and unpalatable. In retrospect, the brutality and gruesomeness in Zinda makes the violence in James seem tame and juvenile. Watch it to know the definition of gratuitous gore.
INDIAN Top 5
1. Zinda
2. Family: Ties of Blood
3. Bluffmaster
4. Kalyug
5. Dosti
US Top 5
1. Underworld: Evolution
2. Hoodwinked
3. Glory Road
4. Last Holiday
5. Brokeback Mountain
Courtesy: Film Information