IDENTITY CARD – The film tries but fails to deliver
Identity Card directed by Kunal Deshmukh, the cast involved are Tia Bajpal, Brijendrea Kala, Prashaant Kumar, Vipin Sharma, Saurah Shukla and Raghuvir Yadav.
This film tries to deliver a strong message about Kashmir, but fails in the approach of portraying the problems in the city through a filmmaking form. The film showcases the problems and the screenplay is clear enough to indicate the issues that occur. But it never keeps you strongly gripped to the message that the director intended to deliver.
The film does engage at times due to the dialogues and some scenes that transpire but it never does enough to leave an impact to the viewers. It continues to slow down, the only time that the film becomes interesting or at least attention grabbing is when the senior actors who have the acting experience at a higher level appear on screen. Identity Card touches upon revealing how innocent civilians are taken capture and falsely labelled as terrorists. They get interrogated and not given their rights in making that one phone call that everyone is entitled to. In the end one of those whom are captured reveals that he really is a terrorist and the remaining colleagues are left to make their way home.
As for the casts, acting was poor and it showed on screen with the younger actors not empowering any other actors on screen despite being the leads. The senior actors, who have worked in Bollywood films, showcased their acting abilities and carried out their roles really well and did help grab the viewer’s attention at times. But they could only act out to the extent of the script and as the script lacked depth and conviction, the acting suffered throughout the film. Actors like Vipin Sharma, Brijendra Kala, Saurabh Shukla and Raghuveer Yadav carried out their roles quite well respectively.
As for the script, it needed more power through the dialogues considering the sensitive topic that this movie was touching upon with problems in Kashmir. It failed to do so and considering that the ending twist where Nazia records Samuel’s confession of killing innocent civilians to find the terrorists. I felt this was created really well and another scene that I enjoyed watching was when Hakim Dim and Nabi were in the mosque having a heart to heart talk with all their personal problems in life surrounding the Kashmir terrorism and family issues. It was a heart felt scene and was something that I can recall back as one of the best parts of the screenplay. Saurab Shukla did really well in delivering that scene.
As for the verdict, I rate ‘Identity Card’ 2/5. It seemed like a low budget film and more so looked like a documentary in it. I wish that more creativity were shown from the filmmakers in showcasing a film with a message that this one carried out initially. I also felt the acting was poor with the script not being impactful. Despite the negatives there were a couple of scenes in which the acting was good but clearly not enough to make this film a must watch. Although it is decent enough for a one time watch because it teaches you what happens in Kashmir if you have no idea in general. But if you want to see in-depth portrayal of events then you are better of looking through news archival because this film will only show glimpses and not go in too deep with the concept.