Abhishek Sharma's debut feature Without You, Bin Laden arrives with a great deal of both matter and controversy; banned in some nations, and begrudged in general due to its nature and its content, the 2010 black comedy about certain contemporary issues actually arrives with more of a brain and more of a heart than people give credit. Where accusations of exploitation and the general handling of delicate subjects in a manner that more broadly represents something that is anything but, Sharma's film is principally more inclined to be about characters doing such things rather than resembling a film prone to indulging in such things. The film is a really quite enjoyable and rather well played comedy about celebrification and ill-judged attitudes towards the garnering of fame through faux-successes; a piece that is, of sorts, a demonisation of the Capitalist mentality eventually seeing an individual place themselves first and foremost amidst a hotbed of political tension and pre-existent oneupmanship within a specific career field.
The film opens mere days after the eleventh day of the month of September, the year 2001; the infamous date of the attacks unleashed upon the United States by a series of extremists. Tensions are high; hysteria, suspicion are omnipresent and the boss of a Pakistani based TV news network stands upon a runway at a Pakistani airport outlining the severity of the situation for us following this cataclysmic event in a manner suggesting it might be hard to thoroughly recall such a predicament ourselves - I suppose the event is long enough ago now for people of a younger disposition to be unaware of the fear and such that was born out of such a day's events. Additionally, a certain Ali Hassan (Zafar) works for the station; a man in the process of packing up his belongings and bidding adieu to those around him, namely partner-in-company Gul (Ratnaparkhi), he bids to leave for the U.S. with the line that "today" he "chases America", but that "tomorrow" America will "chase me", as he strives to make it within the American journalistic field .
It isn't long, however, before Hassan is brought back to Earth; quite literally, finding himself grounded in Pakistan again when he is mistaken for a terrorist on board the flight in what is an early gag about such fears and perceptions established in the opening. The persistent rejection of a Visa so as to travel abroad and resume said dream lasts several years, and takes us up to more recent times - a stretch of time that holds up the party and forces him to work for his original Pakistani network whom sends him out to cover more menial jobs including such things as "Cock Operas" (don't ask). Hassan's enthusiasm to get started within the domain of journalism syncs up nicely with that of what we can only imagine were Sharma's initial struggles and problems in attempting to get his film made; the meeting of a certain chicken farmer named Noora (Singh) at one of these media events coming to formulate the catalyst Hassan needs to try and unlock a pathway into the big-time of media scoops and 'proper' news journalism.
Principally, Noora's uncanny resemblance to a certain Osama Bin Ladan leads Hassan and his small crew that he concocts to shoot a mock-Al-Qaeda video of the guy making grave threats and release it so as to garner some kind of fame. For the most part, their idea works; for the best part, it falls apart – Sharma's film going on to cover that of the fallout from such an instance, an instance that we entrust the Taliban would probably deny the happening of in real-life, but an instance that brings about the presence of an American General whom is dropped in to work with the Pakistani secret service after Hassan's tape leaked from there. The General is named Ted (John), someone with very little time for pleasantries, but when it comes to formulating a plan to spend the nation's defence budget on blind warfare, he's all ears. The man sports a romping Kentucky accent and comes at us as an odd variation on Brian Cox's character from the first X-Men sequel. He launches a fresh bombardment on the nation of Afghanistan, a country with very little to do with the problem that arises within the film anyway, in what arrives as a quaint allegory for America's own real-life involvement and engagement with the nation of Iraq born out of the 9/11 attacks.
In spite of all the publicity, I've little doubt Sharma has set out with good and proper intentions in regards to making the film; he peppers his lead's apartment with very specific American film posters, that of 1976's Rocky and 1998's American History X, two films encapsulating the lead's attitude and general framework. In sync with Rocky, the man chases a dream; an ambitious youngster in a certain field gunning for some kind of rags-to-riches tale that'll see him come out the other end richer and on top, whereas Tony Kaye's devastating American History X is, at its core, a film about a man realising the falsities of his thinking and coming to regret the getting of those close to him involved in the politics he attempted to implement himself into. When we are most aware of these two posters, it is when Hassan is outlining his plans to his collective troupé of beauticians and camera operators, thus syncing up with the above thoughts. The film is, away from all prejudices, a neat and effective enough comedy piece, opting for drama towards the end, managing to pull off mostly all of what it sets out to cover, in what is an honest, somewhat scathing and rather smart satire on the post-9/11 world in which we live as well as the idiocies that such an existence brings out in people who are otherwise dedicated; motivated and somewhat intuitive.
The film opens mere days after the eleventh day of the month of September, the year 2001; the infamous date of the attacks unleashed upon the United States by a series of extremists. Tensions are high; hysteria, suspicion are omnipresent and the boss of a Pakistani based TV news network stands upon a runway at a Pakistani airport outlining the severity of the situation for us following this cataclysmic event in a manner suggesting it might be hard to thoroughly recall such a predicament ourselves - I suppose the event is long enough ago now for people of a younger disposition to be unaware of the fear and such that was born out of such a day's events. Additionally, a certain Ali Hassan (Zafar) works for the station; a man in the process of packing up his belongings and bidding adieu to those around him, namely partner-in-company Gul (Ratnaparkhi), he bids to leave for the U.S. with the line that "today" he "chases America", but that "tomorrow" America will "chase me", as he strives to make it within the American journalistic field .
It isn't long, however, before Hassan is brought back to Earth; quite literally, finding himself grounded in Pakistan again when he is mistaken for a terrorist on board the flight in what is an early gag about such fears and perceptions established in the opening. The persistent rejection of a Visa so as to travel abroad and resume said dream lasts several years, and takes us up to more recent times - a stretch of time that holds up the party and forces him to work for his original Pakistani network whom sends him out to cover more menial jobs including such things as "Cock Operas" (don't ask). Hassan's enthusiasm to get started within the domain of journalism syncs up nicely with that of what we can only imagine were Sharma's initial struggles and problems in attempting to get his film made; the meeting of a certain chicken farmer named Noora (Singh) at one of these media events coming to formulate the catalyst Hassan needs to try and unlock a pathway into the big-time of media scoops and 'proper' news journalism.
Principally, Noora's uncanny resemblance to a certain Osama Bin Ladan leads Hassan and his small crew that he concocts to shoot a mock-Al-Qaeda video of the guy making grave threats and release it so as to garner some kind of fame. For the most part, their idea works; for the best part, it falls apart – Sharma's film going on to cover that of the fallout from such an instance, an instance that we entrust the Taliban would probably deny the happening of in real-life, but an instance that brings about the presence of an American General whom is dropped in to work with the Pakistani secret service after Hassan's tape leaked from there. The General is named Ted (John), someone with very little time for pleasantries, but when it comes to formulating a plan to spend the nation's defence budget on blind warfare, he's all ears. The man sports a romping Kentucky accent and comes at us as an odd variation on Brian Cox's character from the first X-Men sequel. He launches a fresh bombardment on the nation of Afghanistan, a country with very little to do with the problem that arises within the film anyway, in what arrives as a quaint allegory for America's own real-life involvement and engagement with the nation of Iraq born out of the 9/11 attacks.
In spite of all the publicity, I've little doubt Sharma has set out with good and proper intentions in regards to making the film; he peppers his lead's apartment with very specific American film posters, that of 1976's Rocky and 1998's American History X, two films encapsulating the lead's attitude and general framework. In sync with Rocky, the man chases a dream; an ambitious youngster in a certain field gunning for some kind of rags-to-riches tale that'll see him come out the other end richer and on top, whereas Tony Kaye's devastating American History X is, at its core, a film about a man realising the falsities of his thinking and coming to regret the getting of those close to him involved in the politics he attempted to implement himself into. When we are most aware of these two posters, it is when Hassan is outlining his plans to his collective troupé of beauticians and camera operators, thus syncing up with the above thoughts. The film is, away from all prejudices, a neat and effective enough comedy piece, opting for drama towards the end, managing to pull off mostly all of what it sets out to cover, in what is an honest, somewhat scathing and rather smart satire on the post-9/11 world in which we live as well as the idiocies that such an existence brings out in people who are otherwise dedicated; motivated and somewhat intuitive.