Hollywood remakes are most of the time only an occasion for the adapted
version to be ridiculed and "The Killer" just about escapes
this fate.
If you haven't seen Michael Mann's "Collateral", you wouldn't
know that nearly every moment in "The Killer" is inspired
by the original. And what has not been derived from it is not worth
the script's while.
The two unlikely partners in the confused collaboration between a cabbie
and his criminal passenger are played by actors who seem oblivious of
what Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise did in the original.
There are some interesting moments of shared camaraderie between Irrfan
Khan and Emran Hashmi and they have been given some crisp lines to mouth.
The words allow them to explore with audacity the chasm between crime
and morality.
Dark in tone, the interface between the two actors is often broken
by songs featuring the exuberant romantic lead (Nisha Kothari) who walks
in with a confident swagger that could have damaged the film's taut
equilibrium.
She manages to intrude without disrupting the main drama, which involves
just two characters and a series of brutal murders. The cops on the
killer's trail are so caricatural that crime often gets glorified.
The narration
has a certain momentum that the co-directors don't allow to be lost
till the feverish finale when the inexperienced cabbie finally takes
on the ruthless assassin.
The incidental characters are kept at a hand's distance from the revved-up
plot. But finally, you aren't really interested in the body count. You
just want to know why a section of Bollywood chooses to remake American
flicks that have no cultural roots in Hindi cinema.
Realising this, the location is shifted to Dubai. The crowded airport,
over-loaded highways and sleek malls lend themselves well to the sense
of impending doom.
For the rest, the film is largely a pointless take on what constitutes
the anatomy of crime.
As the simple-hearted cabbie interacts with the crime-lord we don't
really get to know why criminals behave in a particular way.
All we see are two differently-profiled actors holding up the film
for all it's worth.
