Writers deserve more credit for epic characters, scenes: Naseer

Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah believes that most epic Bollywood characters became successful not only because of an actor's efforts, but also because they were well-written.

"I admire writers, and in my profession also I believe that a writer's contribution is most important. Whichever performance by any actor has been admired, it has been because those roles or scenes were well-written, " the 62-year-old said here Tuesday at the launch of doctor-author Satyen Nabar's debut novel "A Bolt Of Lightning".

"That's why only actors don't deserve all the credit. Writing is a tough job. To write comprehensively and entertainingly is a big task, " he added.

Naseer also recalled a time when famous writer Gulzar was going through a tough phase but his writing helped him sail through troubled waters.

"Gulzar bhai told me once that when he was going through a tough time, when his films were failing, he had no reason to go to his office. But he said, 'I went there every morning, industriously, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and he sat and wrote.

'I don't know what I wrote, most of that I have tossed away but that writing regularly kept him sane.' These are Gulzar bhai's own words, " said Naseeruddin.

Some of Naseer's epic roles were in films "Nishant", "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron", "Masoom", "Ijaazat" and "Bazaar", Ishqiya" and many more.

He was recently seen in the role of a police officer in "Maximum."

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Maximum is a minimum-fuss crime drama

Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Sonu Sood, Neha Dhupia, Amit Sadh, Vinay Pathak

Written & Directed by Kabeer Kaushik

Rating: *** ½

With a kind of brisk businesslike immediacy and the least amount of fuss Maximum takes us into the world of encounter killings and the internecine war in Mumbai’s police department which threatens to destroy the very institution built to mend the wounds and fissures in the social fabric. 

Writer-director Kabeer Kaushik seems to be a born minimalist. His earlier film the underrated Saher was also steeped in the khaki colour. In Maximum the world of legally-enforced corruption is created with such a lack of back-projection, history and vocalized subtexts that you often feel the director takes his audience for granted. 

This is not the case. Kabeer Kaushik only presumes that we are intelligent enough to enter the murky morally ambivalent world of his characters without being led by the hand. It’s a dark unlit and often dreary world ignited by repugnant flare-ups of violence where cops are shown to behave like hardcore criminals. You really can’t tell the two sides apart. 

Naseeruddin Shah who plays a ruthless encounter cop Arun Inamdar is introduced to us when a victim lies bleeding in front of the cop. Characteristically director Kabeer Kaushik plunges into the scene of crime when the dark deed is done. We see Inamdar watching the victim bleed to death and then pumping two bullets into the chap to make sure there’s no unfinished business here. 

This is a world of unmitigated immorality. Bullets are fired not to stop but to merchanidize crime. And the lawmakers are shown to be as corrupt as the ones they set out to nab and mend. Pratap Pandit, as played by that fine versatile actor Sonu Sood, is a man of a few words, much action. 

We are not given a chance to know him closely. He shifts gears so often we’re often left looking briefly at gaping wounds that can never heal in our socio-political system. The view is swift and disconcerting. 

The narration assumes a peculiar pace. Though there are bloody shootouts, grim exchange of dialogues, item girls gyrating in smoky dance bars, and car cashes on Mumbai’s deceptively glistening roads, the underbelly of the film is coated with a deathly silence. 

As guns roar and Daniel George plays out an elegiac evocative background score to underline the senselessness of the violence, we can see the characters’ selfimposed emptiness in the face of the volatile noise that they’ve created around their lives. 

The hollowness hits you in the head more than the heart. And when the emotions seize the plot in a vice-like grip we feel terribly sorry for the characters for the deathtrap that they’ve built for one another and finally themselves. 

The film opens in 2003 at the height of the encounter killings in Mumbai. Two encounter specialists played by Sonu Sood and Naseeruddin Shah are at loggerheads the way any two professionals in the same job-space are bound to be. 

Admirably the director doesn’t use the two principal characters to form a central conflict. This is a world deprived of moral and legal bearings. Dog eats dog. Cop kills cop. 

Kaushik’s narration is as ruthless and stripped of humour and other sources of cinematic solace as the world his characters inhabit. A certain amount of familiarity with the world of encounter killings is assumed on the audiences’ part.

We are expected to understand the subverted value-system of the encounter cops who do their social cleansing and in the process get so embroiled in blood, their hands are soaked in the very blood that they are meant to wash away. 

Hence our ‘hero’ Pratap(based on a real-life encounter specialist) is shown to kill criminals, extort money from builders and businessman and hobnob with the powerful and profance. And yet he returns home to a loving wife(Neha Dhupia, blending into the saree folds as fluently as the slit gowns that she generally wears) and a daughter. The father-daughter scenes are done with a tremulous tenderness. 

Sonu Sood invests immense emotion in these scenes. His performance takes him through several moral dilemmas. Years pass. Sood’s body language expresses the deplorable shift in power equations. Here’s a performance that again proves this underrated actor’s unimpeachable versatility. 

“When you are slipping you either fight back or you keep quiet, ” he tells his journalist-friend, played by an interesting actor Amit Sadh. They share keema-pao at an Irani restaurant. As the years pass earlier the cop paid, later the scribe does. 

A subtle illustration of a power-shift that says so much about the socio-economic equations of Mumbai. The journalist’s character remains a kind of sutradhar who gets willnilly sucked into the power game between crime and politics. 

By the end of the film we really don’t know who is in the crime folds for the money and who’s there for the power. 

Maximum is a film that’s far more in-charge of its out-of-control sharp-shooting cops than it seems. Yes, there have been any number of films about encounter cops. But this one gets at the underbelly of desolation and isolation of such cops as effectively as Shimit Amin’s Ab Tak Chappan. 

The are some brilliantly executed shootouts. Note Neha Dhupia’s haunting alaap just before a pen-ultimate exchange of fire. And the climactic confrontation between Sood and Naseer’s character on a station leaves us sickened yet invigorated…

The stunning endgame is one of the many pleasures of watching Maximum. A layered sharp and sagacious look at the internecine world of encounter cops, Maximum is a minimum-fuss crime drama where the characters are so austere in their emotions they somehow seem to be constantly shadow-dancing with their conscience. 

The performances by Sonu Sood and Naseeruddin Shah propel the plot to a gripping summit. But there isn’t enough of Naseer. Vinay Pathak as a UP ka politician and Amit Sadh as a journalist both trying to make sense of Mumbai’s confounding cosmopolitanism add considerably to the film’s powerful personality. 

For Sonu Sood Maximum is a new beginning.

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Maximum' director 'honoured' to work with Naseer

Director Kabir Kaushik, whose movie "Maximum" is set to hit screens Friday, loved working with Naseeruddin Shah, and hopes the audience will love the movie.

"I am extremely honoured to have Naseer sir in the film. The film is based on crime and police. It's a complete package and I am sure the audience will appreciate the hard work we've put in," said Kaushik.

"Maximum" also features Sonu Sood, Vinay Pathak and Neha Dhupia.

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'No wonder Naseeruddin Shah is the best

Anant Jog feels lucky to be working with Naseeruddin Shah after a gap of more than 15 years

Anant Jog has had a lucky streak in the last couple of weeks, with Shanghai and Rowdy Rathore. The veteran Marathi actor now has more interesting projects up his sleeve.

He will be working with Naseeruddin Shah in debutant director Solomon Ahishor’s upcoming film. The actors have worked together twice before and their last film Chaahat released way back in 1996. Anant is now looking forward to their third project as co-stars. 

Jog raves, “This was my third paid workshop. It’s like going to a drama school without paying the fees. Working with Naseer bhai provides one with an invaluable depth of experience. In fact, you don’t even have to work with him. Just being in his company teaches you so many things. No wonder he’s the best.”


Along with Marathi cinema, the 54-year-old has been constantly juggling relatively smaller roles in Hindi films. But he refuses to discriminate between the two industries, “It goes without saying that Bollywood has a larger canvas and a far wider public reach. That said, for an actor, the expression of emotions remains the same whatever the language be.” 

He is also part of the Marathi remake of No Entry. However, when it comes to Bollywood, Anant prefers to stay unsung. That’s unless you prod him further and he succinctly asks, “Do you know what’s common between Singham, Rowdy Rathore and Shanghai?” before answering himself, “Me.”

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Vidya Balan fascinated by Naseeruddin

Vidya Balan is fascinated with the poetic wooing style of old-timer Naseeruddin Shah rather than wickedly funny guy Arshad Warsi in Vishal Bhardwaj’s protégé Abhishek Chaubey’s directorial debut ‘Ishqiya’. Talking about the difference in the approach of both her lovers in the movie, Vidya informs, “Arshad’s character is a typical guy for whom love is the way to get sex and Naseer saab’s character is more old school.”

She continues, “Krishna is not apologetic about her needs. She gets attracted to Arshad’s character and there is a certain culmination to it. With Naseer saab she enjoys that attention. He woos her in a classical way.” No wonder Vidya falls for Naseeruddin Shah when he woos her with ‘Dil toh bachcha hai ji’.

Ask her how she would like to be wooed in real life she admits, “Fortunately or unfortunately I love the Naseer saab kind of romance, someone who woos with beautiful words and poetry. It’s old school filmy style. I don’t mind when a man opens a door for me or pulls out the chair for me. That chivalry is there in his character though in a different way because it’s a rural setting.”

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