Locations in Europe: Samos Island (Greece), Istanbul, and London
Storyline
Star(s): Abhishek Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Sarah Jane Dias, Shahana Goswami, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani
Songs/Dance/Action Sequences: Located in Istanbul.
Indian/ International Crew: Indian and international.
Language: Hindi
Executive Producer/Production Manager Executive Producer: Miriam Joseph Production Manager at Greece: Christos Alex Giotis, Film Greece Production and Locations Services Production Manager at Istanbul: Cengiz Karadeniz Production Manager London: Lee Alliston, Darkside Pictures
Director/Producer: Directed by Abhinav Deo; Produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani – Excel Entertainment
Film Location Analysis
By Shikha Jhingan
The film opens with Kabir Malhotra’s secretary looking out for him at his island garden where he is showing two local village children some skills in gardening. Next, we are introduced to each of the four characters in their respective habitats with the text giving us their locations. Tisha is caught by the police for drunken driving in London, while Neil is trying to outsmart Columbian gangsters in Istanbul who want to recover some money from him. Meanwhile Kabir Malhotra awaits their arrival at Samos island. The next shots show Vikram and Tisha waiting at a small air base in Athens, Greece where we see Ramsay flying in from a helicopter, while Neil hovers around the island in a private jet before making his landing. The island is thus depicted as a nerve centre for global connections. The aerial view of the sea now gets shifted to the view of the white waters as the camera follows its trail till we see the motorboat. A drone shot frames both the boat and Neil’s plane flying out. The camera frames the four characters looking towards the island with anticipation. The grandeur of Malhotra’s villa gets accentuated through the use of highly skilled camera work, a dramatic soundtrack, and the body language of the characters, especially Tisha, who is clicking photographs of the island and the façade of Malhotra’s private villa with her small digital camera.
The second sequence is a flashback in Istanbul where we see Neil Menon being hunted down by his rival gang in the kitchen of his nightclub/casino. This is where he meets Maya, a dancer at the night club who rushes to his rescue after he gets shot. Istanbul becomes a site of romance for Maya and Neil as we see them at several iconic sites along its natural harbour on the Golden Horn, including wooden piers looking into the strait and the Esma Sultan manor next to the Orkatoy mosque. Another section is shot at Irini Church, an abandoned Church in Istanbul. The last shot is that of the couple looking towards the Bosphorus Bridge from their room.
As we come to the present time, we see Neil in his room remembering Maya until he gets distracted by the television sound. We see Ramsay on the television screen speaking to the media in Bangkok about Malhotra’s death.
Television screens and CCTV cameras play a key role in giving a global dimension to the crime syndicate in the film. A key sequence in the film is inspired by Bourne Identity (2002) as we see Sia Agnihotri (Kangana Ranaut), an officer of the International Vigilance Squad in London, asking her team to keep Neil Menon on strict surveillance through satellite imagery. Neil, being chased by two undercover cops, navigates Istanbul on foot, ranging from key iconic sites like the Blue Mosque, Taksim Square, Istiklal Street, the tram ride on Istiklal Street, Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, New Galata Bridge, to a residential stone-tiled street. The sequence makes a distinction between the city seen through surveillance cameras while hunting for Neil’s mobile body, and the city framed directly through the gaze of the film. As Neil enters the Grand Bazaar, we see a range of Turkish wares displayed in the market, the most prominent being jewellery and Turkish carpets, till we reach the rooftop of Grand bazaar. This sequence makes a reference to the iconic sequence shot on the rooftop of the Grand bazaar in Skyfall as we see Daniel Craig on a bike.
As the music quickens its pace, the city becomes grittier for the cops as they are unable to keep pace with Neil on the highs and lows of Istanbul’s tiled streets. The sound design accentuates this grittiness as we hear the cops landing on their feet, with acoustic close-ups giving us a sense of Istanbul’s street infrastructure as human bodies collide with stone tiles. The use of traffic in some sections, the azaan from the mosque and breathing sounds add to the thrill of the chase. Another interesting framing is the use of a clothesline with clothes hanging on it, providing a vista of the street from the point-of-view of the cops.
The framing of London is imagined through the mediascape as we see Sia getting all the news about the four characters through newspapers or television cameras. An interesting shot in London is a low-angle perspective of a street, as we see a bundle of London Times being stashed into the street vending machine while a truck is vacuum cleaning the roads. The circulation of news about movement of crime and criminals keeps the International Vigilance Squad on its toes while the city is getting ready for another day,
The last sequence in the film takes us back to Samos island, where the identity of the murderer is revealed in the villa. As Malhotra’s secretary (Guauhar Khan) is arrested and taken into a boat, we see Kabir and Sia looking towards the sea. The tree in the frame is bereft of any leaves, giving a barren feel to the place. This is in complete contrast to the lush and many-hued garden in which Kabir Malhotra is located in the opening sequence.
