There is a scene in Omerta, where the protagonist, Omar Sayeed Sheikh is shown beheading Daniel Pearl - the Wall Street Journalist abducted and killed in Karachi, in 2002. It is a chilling scene- with the focus entirely on Omar(Rajkumar Rao)'s face, with him going about the operation like a surgeon at an operating table - clinical, focussed, unemotional. You hear the knife at work, over a laborious few seconds, cutting through, what you presume is flesh, and you flinch, and then you hear a sound of a guzzling, flowing fluid. You flinch again, knowing fully well what it is. At the end of the scene, Omar wipes his specs off and has a smile that indicates a job well accomplished. This is one of the most hair raising scenes in Hindi film in recent times, and try as I may, it stays with me almost 18 hours later. There is only one problem with this scene though – it is fictional.
Omerta (Italian for ‘code of silence amongst criminals’) is a movie about the rise and criminal works of Omar Sayeed Sheikh. Who is Omar, you might ask. I did – for sure. Some news reports suggest that the kidnapper of Daniel Pearl may have had a hand in a bunch of terrorist activities from the Kandahar highjacking, to 9/11 to the Parliament attacks in India. However, hard evidence implicates him in two events-the kidnapping of British and American tourists in Delhi in 1994 and the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. Some funding for one of the 9/11 Hijackers has been traced to Omar, and a couple of calls post 26/11 to Indian agencies, have been pinned on him, but around his involvement in the other nefarious deeds, there is only Omerta (silence). Why a director takes fascination for a subject is always his creative prerogative, but to make a film based on a real person, on whom real material available is at best slim, is walking a very slippery slope. Now, Hansal Mehta and Rajkumar Rao know how to create riveting big screen films that deal with dark topics, So Omerta is not boring, and one is glued to the film, in spite its patchy screenplay or its documentary style story telling – with real news excerpts interspersed with the story.
This is where my problem with the movie lies. It’s style of story-telling, its need to stick to ‘facts’ available on Wikipedia, make one believe that the movie is based on facts. However, the truth is that the movie is a mix of fact and fiction. Since most people wont separate fact from fiction, you walk away with a slightly distorted picture about not just Omar Sheikh, but Islam in general.
For instance: Was Omar a British National? Yes. Did the Mullah of his family’s mosque in UK consider him a ‘Son of God’ because he was a Jihadi? – there is no evidence to support that. Did Omar plan and execute the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl? Yes. Did he personally slaughter him? No. In fact, there is now evidence that this gruesome act was done by an Arabic jihadi now in American custody. Because available, usable material on Omar is so slim, the director tries to fill in the gaps by dramatising one line news articles and by mixing fact and fiction. I had other issues with the film – for example, every Muslim shown in the film is either a tacit or active supporter of Islamic terror. Not only is this a very dangerous, broad brushstroke- in this specific case, it is also factually incorrect.
Omar’s primary claim to global infamy was the planning and execution of Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping. That topic however has been filmed several times already and for those with an interest in that topic, I recommend a documentary I stumbled upon – ‘The Journalist and the Jihadi’, which has a voice-over by Christiane Amanpour and one that plots the life trajectory of both Daniel Pearl and Omar Sheikh beautifully. Much more balanced, watchable and fact-based. Omerta, however, is a film one can wait to watch on Netflix or TV. Rajkumar Rao is riveting to watch, no doubt, but in spite of Hansal Mehta’s best efforts, the screenplay is patchy, and much more importantly, misleading. Rating 1.5/5
Omerta (Italian for ‘code of silence amongst criminals’) is a movie about the rise and criminal works of Omar Sayeed Sheikh. Who is Omar, you might ask. I did – for sure. Some news reports suggest that the kidnapper of Daniel Pearl may have had a hand in a bunch of terrorist activities from the Kandahar highjacking, to 9/11 to the Parliament attacks in India. However, hard evidence implicates him in two events-the kidnapping of British and American tourists in Delhi in 1994 and the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. Some funding for one of the 9/11 Hijackers has been traced to Omar, and a couple of calls post 26/11 to Indian agencies, have been pinned on him, but around his involvement in the other nefarious deeds, there is only Omerta (silence). Why a director takes fascination for a subject is always his creative prerogative, but to make a film based on a real person, on whom real material available is at best slim, is walking a very slippery slope. Now, Hansal Mehta and Rajkumar Rao know how to create riveting big screen films that deal with dark topics, So Omerta is not boring, and one is glued to the film, in spite its patchy screenplay or its documentary style story telling – with real news excerpts interspersed with the story.
This is where my problem with the movie lies. It’s style of story-telling, its need to stick to ‘facts’ available on Wikipedia, make one believe that the movie is based on facts. However, the truth is that the movie is a mix of fact and fiction. Since most people wont separate fact from fiction, you walk away with a slightly distorted picture about not just Omar Sheikh, but Islam in general.
For instance: Was Omar a British National? Yes. Did the Mullah of his family’s mosque in UK consider him a ‘Son of God’ because he was a Jihadi? – there is no evidence to support that. Did Omar plan and execute the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl? Yes. Did he personally slaughter him? No. In fact, there is now evidence that this gruesome act was done by an Arabic jihadi now in American custody. Because available, usable material on Omar is so slim, the director tries to fill in the gaps by dramatising one line news articles and by mixing fact and fiction. I had other issues with the film – for example, every Muslim shown in the film is either a tacit or active supporter of Islamic terror. Not only is this a very dangerous, broad brushstroke- in this specific case, it is also factually incorrect.
Omar’s primary claim to global infamy was the planning and execution of Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping. That topic however has been filmed several times already and for those with an interest in that topic, I recommend a documentary I stumbled upon – ‘The Journalist and the Jihadi’, which has a voice-over by Christiane Amanpour and one that plots the life trajectory of both Daniel Pearl and Omar Sheikh beautifully. Much more balanced, watchable and fact-based. Omerta, however, is a film one can wait to watch on Netflix or TV. Rajkumar Rao is riveting to watch, no doubt, but in spite of Hansal Mehta’s best efforts, the screenplay is patchy, and much more importantly, misleading. Rating 1.5/5
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