This Flight won’t Take Off
Rating: 1.5/5
Cast: Esha Deol, Shiney Ahuja, KK Raina, Kaveri Jha, Ishita
Director: Kunal Shivdasani
A terrorist group wants one of their men, Rasheed (K K Raina), released by the Indian government. When a couple of attempts to free him forcibly fail, the group decides to go all out to save their brother. They hijack a plane and begin to kill people on it till Rasheed is given to them.
Vikram Madan (Shiney Ahuja) is an aircraft maintenance chief. His daughter Priya (Ishita) is on the flight to Amritsar when it is hijacked. While the government ponders over how to deal with the situation, Madan decides to take things in his own hands. Knowing the aircraft interiors extremely well, he sneaks into the cargo hold while it is being re-fuelled. Slowly and steadily he takes on one hijacker at a time with the help of airhostess Saira (Esha Deol) and kills two of the five. That’s till one of the hijackers gets a whiff what is happening and takes matters in his own hands. Threatening to kill Priya, he makes Vikram come out from the shadows.
Will he be able to save the people on board or will the hijackers succeed? That’s what the film is about.
Barring Shiney Ahuja’s performance and that too in parts, everything else disappoints. In one song, director Kunal Shivdasani has wrapped up Shiney’s life without really explaining much. Esha Deol does a ridiculous job as an airhostess. At one point she actually asks Shiney ‘Do you know what a Hijack is?’ KK Raina as Rasheed has succeeded in at least pulling off the look of one of the most feared terrorists.
All in all Hijack might find takers for its action but that too is not very original and most of it far fetched. In one scene we see Shiney run behind the airplane which is about to take off and when he realizes (thank god!) he can’t reach it, he gets into the ladder used for aircrafts to follow them and when that too fails, he calls for his friend on the runway to bring him - wait for it!- a helicopter. Hanging off it he is flown quickly over to the aircraft where without any rope or ladder he lands on one of the wings. And with just a few seconds before the aircraft gets off the ground, Vikram throws in a walkie talkie into one of the engines which causes it to blow up and therefore not take off!
There were moments in the theatre when people laughed - not because the script was funny - but at the scenes, at the script and at the overall ridiculousness of most of the portions of this film.
Head for this one at your own peril and don’t say we didn’t warn you if you feel your brains were hijacked by the time the credits roll.
