Ground Zero Cast/Actors: Emraan Hashmi, Sai Tamhankar, Zoya Hussain, Mukesh Tiwari, Lalit Prabhakar & Others
Ground Zero Movie Director: Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar
Ground Zero Movie Production House: Excel Entertainment, Talisman Films and Dreamzkrraft Entertainment
Ground Zero Movie Release Date: 25th April, 2025
Ground Zero Movie Available On: Theatrical Release and (likely to be released on Amazon Prime OTT Platform)
Ground Zero Movie Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Ground Zero Movie Runtime: 2h 14m
Ground Zero Movie Critic Review:
For sure it’s a well-made film.
It’s also well-intentioned as it tells the real-life story of BSF officer Narendra Dubey (played by Emraan Hashmi) who nabbed Ghazi Baba, India’s most wanted terrorist in the early 2000s.
Between director Tejas Prabh Vijay Deoskar and camerawork by Kamaljeet Negi, the suddenness of a shot in the market that kills a BSF officer sipping tea, stuns the Force as much as the viewer. The rawness of the Kashmir valley in 2001 where stone pelting in the name of ‘azaadi’ and luring young boys to pick up pistols and shoot soldiers at random, is impactful.
Writers Sanchit Gupta and Priyadarshee Srivastava equip Dubey with lines of zeal like, “Asli jeet” is not in taking the gun away from their hands, it’s in changing their thoughts, cleansing their minds of the hatred they harbour. Dubey also spouts ‘Aaj risk nahi liya toh kal sabke liye risky ho jayega’ every time he urges his men to act during a mission. It’s not the catchy line the writers probably intended it to be but it is expectedly thrown back at him at another time when his morale is low.
There is a background score (John Stewart Eduri & Rohan-Rohan) that keeps the thrill and chill of the mission in mind and plays accordingly.
Kashmir has always been a hotbed of terror and blood. Emanating from there were the attacks on the Indian Parliament in Delhi and on Akshardham in Gujarat. Operating under the same puppeteer is the local Pistol Gang that randomly shoots dead men in uniform in Kashmir. Dubey has lost 17.
How young boys are cajoled into picking up the pistol with promises of cash for comfort (“Buy a new pheran for your mother”), Dubey befriending one such boy called Husain (Mir Mohd Mehroos) and using him to track the network, and the heartbreaking deaths en route to getting mastermind Ghazi Baba, are all told with telling clarity.
Detailing the dutifulness and the valour of Narendra Dubey’s story on celluloid is a worthy enterprise.
However, you cannot shake off the feeling of déjà vu, we’ve been there, done that, we’ve seen Kashmir and its problems ad nauseam in cinema. That’s the one negative that takes the joy out of watching Dubey painstakingly track and nab Ghazi.
The shot takings are good. The screenplay has clarity. The BG score is appropriate (‘Kar fateh’ when the PM is visiting Srinagar). Emraan Hashmi is smart in the BSF uniform. But the unoriginality of situations takes away from the narration. Dubey facing suspension with an unyielding Commanding Officer (Mukesh Tiwari) who throws rank at him and tailors facts to suit his narrative of a successful operation; the senior callously declaring Dubey’s young contact as a terrorist when he’s killed in a botched-up op, and the IB in Delhi nursing ego issues over inter-departmental supremacy to stonewall Dubey, are conflicts far too familiar in many a screenplay.
With little to do, Sai Tamhankar as Dubey’s wife Jaya gets one misplaced outburst at the media to justify why she’s in the cast in the first place.
The climax is shot like the Zero Dark Thirty op that got Osama but because it’s Kashmir, there’s stone pelting outside while Dubey and his men creep around the Abbottabad-like house to pin Ghazi Baba.
With the Pahalgam killings happening just days before the release of Ground Zero, it emphasises the fact that the Kashmir issue is still relevant.
Unfortunately, Hindi cinema has binged on it too often to enthusiastically applaud one more of the same.
Ground Zero Watch Or Not?: Wait for its release on OTT.
Ground Zero Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)
Ground Zero Official Trailer:
Credits: Excel Movies
Must Read: Phule Movie Review: Caste, Illiteracy & Widows
