18 Oct, 2013
2 hrs 10 mins
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SYNOPSIS
Shahid traces the story of a slain human rights activist and lawyer Shahid Azmi. Set during the communal violence that was unleashed in the city of Mumbai in1993. We see a remarkable tale unfold. From attempting to become a terrorist to being wrongly imprisoned under the anti-terrorism law to becoming a lawyer a champion of human rights (particularly the Muslim minorities in India) Shahid traces the inspiring personal journey of a boy while following the rise of communal violence in India. The story of an impoverished Muslim struggling to come to terms with injustice inequality and rising above his circumstances is an inspiring testament to the human spirit.
CAST
Kay Kay Menon
Actor
Pawan Kumar
Actor
Tigmanshu Dhulia
Actor
Mukesh Chhabra
Actor
Paritosh Sand
Actor
Shalini Vatsa
Actor
Vipin Sharma
Actor
Rajkummar Rao
Actor
Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub
Actor
Vivek Ghamande
Actor
Vinod Rawat
Actor
Baljinder Kaur
Actor
Prabhleen Sandhu
Actor
CREW
Hansal Mehta
Director| Screenplay|
Shailesh R. Singh
Producer|
Siddharth Roy Kapur
Producer|
Sunil Kumar Bohra
Producer|
Guneet Monga
Producer|
Anurag Kashyap
Producer|
Virag Mishra
Musician|
Apurva Asrani
Screenplay| Editor|
Nusrat Jafri
Cinematographer|
Mitesh Mirchandani
Cinematographer|
Anuj Rakesh Dhawan
Cinematographer|
Sameer Gautam Singh
Writer| Screenplay|
Prasanna D Zore (Rediff)
Hansal Mehta`s Shahid is a gutsy and thought-provoking film, feels Prasanna D Zore.
In the seven years that Shahid Azmi practised law, he managed to get 17 acquittals from India`s lethargic judicial and callous investigative systems. He paid the price for it in 2010, when his killers pumped him with bullets at his office in a Mumbai suburb.
That in itself deserved a movie and Hansal Mehta`s eponymous Shahid does justice to a complex yet humane character, who went for arms training to a terrorist training camp in the POK, arrested by Indian police on his return, served jail as a TADA detainee and then was acquitted by a court of law for lack of admissible evidence.
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Madhureeta Mukherjee (TOI)
A story based on real-life human-rights and criminal lawyer, Shahid Azmi, who was slain while defending the wrongly accused by the law in terrorist activities.
Review: You can escape a terror attack. You can fight terrorism. But what happens when you are branded a `Terrorist` for life? On the grounds that your name reads `Zahir`,`Faheem`,`Khan`,`Shaikh`(and not Matthew or Donald? God help!).
Even if you`re acquitted, the right to live a life in fairness and dignity is permanently adjourned. Case closed! The story of `Shahid` (fact remixed with fiction)confronts us with hard-hitting questions on religious fundamentalism, flawed legal investigations, and injustices suffered by the underdogs.
In his teens, Shahid (Raj Kumar) witnesses the savagery of religious antagonism during the 1993 Mumbai riots. Shattered and shaken, he escapes from his `slumdog`existence to Kashmir to join the militants. Unnerved with lessons in jihad and jingoism, he returns to a brief life of normalcy in Mumbai.
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Shubha Shetty-Saha (Mid-Day)
Once in a while comes along a film that takes you aback by the direct and brutally honest approach it takes. Hansal Mehtas Shahid is one such film.
For starters, Shahid, deals with a biopic just like how they ideally should be. No glossing over facts, no shying away from the ugliness and the harsh reality in the name of cinematic liberty. The movie displays a rare bravery while dealing with the sensitive topic of terrorism and how the general perceptions can get skewed and how easy it is for legal investigations to jump to conclusions and stigmatize someone even before he is proved guilty.
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Rajeev Masand
``By subjecting me to injustice, the Lord taught me the importance of fairness. By throwing pain, humiliation, and torture my way, he taught me to be strong.`` It is with these words, spoken in a voice-over by the film`s protagonist, that director Hansal Mehta`s Shahid opens. Easily one of the strongest films you`ll see this year, it`s based on the true story of controversial human rights lawyer Shahid Azmi, who was gunned down in cold blood in 2010, presumably for defending a 26/11 accused, who, as it turns out, was acquitted last year. Mehta cuts a sympathetic portrait of Shahid (Rajkumar Yadav), who we first meet as a young boy scarred by the barbaric violence he witnesses during the communal riots of Mumbai in 1993. The devastating impact of those events prompts him to join a terrorist training camp in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. But in a terrific scene that illustrates the actor`s ability to convey volumes without the crutch of words, he changes his mind and heads back home, only to be picked up and thrown into Tihar Jail where the cops try to beat a confession out of him for his suspected links to terrorist outfits.
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