By Aniket Anand:
A topic which has always been around in Bollywood and yet has never been taken up; India’s most wanted criminal has so many times come up in movies but never has any story been made on bringing him back. And that’s the beauty and originality of D day.
It is a movie which revolves around India’s four undercover agents working for the chief of operations for RAW, their struggle to get the ‘Goldman’ back to India while fighting with their own personal emotions. Throughout the movie, except for a song or two, it doesn’t at all escape from the viewers’ attention and that’s the best part.
For a director whose past record comprises of movies like Kal Ho Na Ho, Salaame Ishq and who has assisted in movies like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mohabbatein or Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum, one can clearly assume that here is a guy who involves himself in serious drama and  movies based on love storis. And suddenly the same guy has shifted gear and chosen a topic which has got nothing even remotely close to his past ventures? That’s brave! That too in Hindi Film Industry, its very brave and ambitious. But that has become the beauty of the Hindi cinema for past few years. A movie like this, if it has not been conceived, it would have been very hard even to think about Nikhil Advani taking up this kind of stuff, forgetting making it!
Talking about performances; Irrfan has made a habit of bringing out great work from himself and he has not failed this time too. Huma Qureshi, if she keeps on delivering works like this and trying out different projects, she can well be categorized as one of the very few eminent versatile female actress of Hindi cinema. Arjun Rampal has not only nailed it with his macho looks but he has even slammed those critics who have been writing him off the main stream cinema for such a long time. And finally, Rishi Kapoor as the Goldman has done complete justice with his character. His experience is clearly visible, for instance, a very small thing like his diction changing into Marathi whenever there is a rush of emotions, or the ease of attitude on being the most wanted, portrays his brilliance.
Shankar Ehasaan Loy has been very good in introducing the track Dum a Dum mast Kalandar, as hardly any Pakistani-Punjabi wedding is complete without this song. Mika’s voice and Rajpal Yadav, have given the right amount of energy to this song. Â But the stand out song remains the Alvida number with the best screenplay.
Meticulous is the word when it comes to the writing of the movie and the research involved. It is so properly written and executed that at times the movie appears to be real and not at all fictitious. Even the set which depicts Karachi was so well built that it hardly appears that the movie was not shot in Pakistan.
For people like me, D day is a kind of movie which we seriously look forward to Friday after Friday. Its four out five for this one. Many a words can be said, but do just a thing; go and watch this!