Neerja

<p>22-year-old arrives late for a house party one evening. Her mother, Rama, expresses concern about Neerja’s job as a flight attendant, suggesting that Neerja should return to her old modelling career. Neerja insists on keeping her job. On the early morning of 5 September 1986, she is driven to by her friend Jaideep. Neerja boards , from Mumbai to New York with stops in Karachi and Frankfurt. During the first leg, she reflects on her brief, unhappy arranged marriage to Naresh, a professional in , , who abused her over her small dowry and inability to perform household work. She eventually returned home for a modelling contract. Naresh sent her parents a letter complaining about the dowry and their daughter’s lack of domestic skills, demanding that Neerja either bring back the money or not return at all. Neerja left Naresh and landed a job with . Meanwhile, the organisation, a Libyan-sponsored group, plans to hijack the plane in Karachi’s . The plane lands as scheduled wherein the four Abu Nidal terrorists, disguised as security officers escorting a Libyan diplomat, infiltrate the airport. Neerja quickly alerts the cockpit, without the terrorists knowing, and the three American pilots escape through the overhead hatch, fleeing to the terminal under fire from the hijackers. The American pilots had just enough time to escape, as the hijackers did not realise that the cockpit of a is on the upper level. When a passenger reveals himself as an American, one of the terrorists murders him and dumps his body off the aircraft in front of the Pakistani negotiators. The terrorists try to locate a radio engineer among the passengers by ordering Neerja to announce over the intercom. When Imran Ali, a Pakistani radio engineer, begins to stand up, Neerja signals for him to sit down. The terrorists have the flight attendants collect all passports to identify the American passengers and hold them hostage; Neerja and her colleagues comply, disposing of any American passports by throwing them down trash chutes or hiding them under seats. Dejected over not finding any American passports, the hijackers instead take a British passenger hostage. The Pakistani negotiators inadvertently reveal the name of radio engineer Ali, whom the hijackers bring to the cockpit to use the radio for negotiations. Meanwhile, the Pakistani authorities try to stall for time. When a younger terrorist assaults the passengers and threatens the attendants, the leader chastises him. Humiliated, the younger terrorist storms into the cockpit and shoots Ali, screaming wild threats over the radio. While negotiations with the Pakistani air controllers drag on, the negotiators slowly lose control of the situation, with the hijackers becoming more agitated by the minute. Meanwhile, Neerja, whose birthday would be in 2 days, opens an envelope given to her by Jaideep. The envelope has a letter from him, confessing his love to her, and a biscuit. Neerja reads the note and eats the biscuit which symbolizes her acceptance of his love, something which Jaideep will never learn. Around 17 hours later, the plane loses auxiliary power, and the lights go out inside the plane. Despite Neerja and the other attendants’ attempts to explain, the terrorists assume the Pakistanis cut the power deliberately, and anticipate an imminent Pakistani raid on the plane. The panicking hijackers begin shooting down passengers indiscriminately; at great peril to her own life, Neerja opens the emergency exit door and deploys the chute, directing passengers out of the plane. Choosing to let the passengers escape first, Neerja is shot three times by a terrorist as she tries to shield three young children from the gunfire. The children escape the plane, and Neerja then drags herself out of the doorway and down the emergency slide before dying. The storms the plane, wounding and incapacitating all the terrorists. The film ends with a tribute to Neerja, who was eventually honoured posthumously with the , India’s highest military decoration awarded for peacetime valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice. : work on began in September 2014, when the film’s executive producer Atul Kasbekar said that his company, Bling Unplugged, would co-produce ‘s film along with . Kasbekar later tweeted, “Do U Know Who Neerja Bhanot Is? No? Well U Really Really Should…”. He said, The film’s script and screenplay were penned by Saiwyn Quadras, and the dialogue was written by Sanyuktha Chawla Sheikh. The director of photography for the film was the cinematographer Mitesh Mirchandani, who had been previously associated with 2012 film . The editing for the film was done by Monisha R Baldawa and Manohar Verma served as the stunt director for the film. Kapoor was contracted by Kasbekar to play Neerja Bhanot, the senior flight crew member. On receiving the role of Neerja in the film, Kapoor told the (PTI), It was reported in May 2015 that , one half of ‘s performing/producing duo , would play a short role in the movie, marking his acting debut. played the role of Neerja’s mother Rama Bhanot in the film. In an interview with , Azmi describes her character and explains, “It was very difficult to play her, particularly the last scene where Rama addresses an audience. It is an extremely well-written emotional scene, which does complete justice to the moment.” “So Ram you’re making this film , do you realize the responsibility that you have? You’re actually going to be building a set, you’re not even using a real plane and then you’re going to get people as passengers. Do you realize what actually happened on that plane […]?” Principal photography of the film commenced 19 April 2015 in Mumbai. After two months of filming, the shooting was wrapped up on 19 June 2015. Kasbekar tweeted, “Amazing! And it’s a wrap on !!! 32 shooting days!!! That’s Two More days than took!” During the principal photography of the film, many Bollywood celebrities visited the film’s sets, including , , , and . “I knew that getting Aamir Khan, Boman Irani, Vidya Balan, Raju Hirani and Anil Kapoor to speak to the 220 cast would help instill dedication and effort that this film would require,” director Madhvani said in a statement. During production, the actors playing the crew and the passengers of the flight were put in separate hotels from the actors portraying the hijackers and ate their meals separately, ostensibly to create an air of antagonism in the film between the two groups. This element was applied earlier to the 2006 film . The makers of the film acknowledged the responsibility of portraying the story. One challenge faced was acquiring an actual Boeing 747 for shooting. Director Ram Madhvani and Rucha Pathak initially thought of shooting in , or the due to the convenience of leasing a retired 747 but later decided to re-create the plane because a major part of the film required shooting against the plane backdrop. The plane set took 48 days to build and closely resembled the actual aircraft. The film’s (VFX) were by . VCL produced a wide range of visual effects, including the creation of airport and buildings, and also helped in creating the 1986 period restoration for various locations. The film’s soundtrack is composed by Vishal Khurana with lyrics written by . The first song from the film, “Jeete Hain Chal”, was released by , and Prasoon Joshi at a launch event held on 1 February 2016 in . The entire soundtrack album was released digitally by on 5 February 2016. The film had a special screening on 16 February 2016 in Mumbai, which was attended by celebrities, including filmmaker ; ; Kapoor’s father, ; ; ; ; ; and . The film received a positive response from many Bollywood celebrities, with Tendulkar calling Neerja Bhanot a “Braveheart” and saying that “the people should definitely watch the film.” The film was released worldwide, in approximately 671 theatres, on 19 February 2016. Upon release, received positive reviews, with praise directed to Kapoor’s performance, and was a huge box office success. The film was also praised by Delhi’s , , who tweeted that the film’s message was, “Live for others, die for others.” The film emerged as one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films featuring a female protagonist. was banned in Pakistan, for reasons that remain uncertain. The maintained that the film should not be considered “banned” in Pakistan because it was not submitted to them. The film was declared tax-free by and the . , , said, “The movies and will be free from entertainment tax in Madhya Pradesh on account of International Women’s Day which was celebrated yesterday.” Producer Kasbekar, replied on Twitter, “Big thank you to MP and the Hon CM in declaring tax free in Maharashtra. Quick and decisive decision.” On its first day, the film earned about (US$560,000) net, much of it from and . It collected (US$900,000) net on Saturday and (US$1.1 million) on Sunday, with a weekend total of (US$2.5 million). On Monday, the film netted around (US$440,000), with only around a 20% drop in revenue compared to first day. On Tuesday, the film earned around (US$400,000). The film’s Wednesday, Thursday and Friday earnings were (US$370,000), (US$430,000), and (US$370,000), respectively. On Saturday and Sunday, had a massive jump and earned (US$590,000) and (US$790,000) respectively, for a total collection of (US$5.9 million) at the box office. On the 11th day (Monday), collected (US$250,000); (US$220,000) on Tuesday; (US$220,000) on Wednesday; and (US$210,000) on Thursday. By the end of its 38-day run, the film had grossed an estimated (US$13 million) domestically and (US$3.1 million) internationally, for an approximate worldwide total of (US$16 million). opened strong, collecting (US$18,000) in foreign theatres. The film had the highest opening weekend for a female-led film in the US and Middle East; in the UK, it had the second-highest opening weekend of 2016. Upon release, the film, as well as Kapoor’s performance, received widespread praise from film critics around the world. On , the film holds an approval rating of 100%, based on 12 reviews with an average rating of 8/10. Shubha Shetty-Saha of gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars, calling it “a deeply moving experience”, and writing for Kapoor deemed it as “her best performance till date”. Meena Iyer of gave 4 out of 5 stars and said, ” raises a toast to the daunting spirit of India’s daughters; every one of us must salute Neerja.” gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, “As a movie-watching experience, is flawless. There’s not a single false note.” Writing for , awarded 4 out of 5 stars, saying that ” is a truly inspiring story that will grip you from the first frame till the last.” Sarita Tanwar from gave 4 out of 5 stars, writing, ” is quite easily the finest film in recent times (on par with (2015)) based on a true story.” Raja Sen from gave 4 out of 5 stars as well and called it “an absolute must-watch,” adding that “Sonam Kapoor is exceptional as Neerja Bhanot.” Suahni Singh of rated the film as a 3.5 stars and stated, “Sonam Kapoor delivered her career-best performance as she assuredly plays an abused wife, a beloved daughter and a flight attendant caught in her worst nightmare.” Rummana of gave it 4 out of 5 stars, stating, ” deserves loud applause because not only is it an exceptional story of courage but because it is an ode to the undying spirit of humanity” and called Kapoor as “the star of the film”. also gave a 4 out of 5 star rating: ” is a must-see, not just for its cinematic value, but also as a reminder to salute Neerja’s spirit.” of gave a 3.5 out of 5 rating and said, ” is a well-intentioned, heartfelt film that pays tribute to a real hero.” Shubhra Gupta of also gave the film 3 stars out of 5, writing that “Minus the songs and the excessive schmaltz, could have been outstanding. But still, the film holds, and hold us with it.” Manjusha Radhakrishnan of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars; while she criticised the terrorists’ lack of depth and weak points in s second half, she wrote that “the climax of the film is powerful and makes up for that blip.” Jason Klein of declared that DAR-Film Leaderboard was notably absent of Oscar-nominated films, but part of the gap was filled by . Sonali Kokra of praised the film: ” is a great story told well. Mitesh Mirchandani’s jerky camerawork does a great job of using the claustrophobic confines of the aircraft to showcase the oppressiveness of the situation and the terror of the hostages.”</p>