If
Naam
was
made
today,
there
wouldn’t
even
be
enough
audiences
to
boo
it
out
of
the
halls,
observes
Deepa
Gahlot.
An
Internet
search
reveals
that
Naam
was
completed
in
2004.
It
was
titled
Benaam
then
and
remained
unreleased,
possibly
because
of
Producer
Dinesh
Patel’s
demise
or
some
other
undisclosed
reason.
Twenty
years
in
the
life
of
a
film
is
like
entering
another
era.
Ajay
was
still
Devgan
not
Devgn,
Anees
Bazmee
was
not
yet
the
Bhool
Bhulaiyaa
hotshot,
and
leading
ladies
Bhumika
Chawla
and
Sameera
Reddy
are
no
longer
in
the
running.
Rahul
Dev
has
graduated
from
henchman
to
main
villain.
Himesh
Reshammiya
is
not
the
craze
he
used
to
be.
At
least
two
of
the
supporting
actors
have
died.
It
was
still
possible
to
pick
up
ideas
from
Face/Off
and
The
Long
Kiss
Goodnight
and
Bollywoodise
them,
without
anyone
shouting
plagiarism.
It
takes
both
courage
and
optimism
to
release
a
film
when
its
bones
are
creaking.
Had
the
film
been
out
20
years
ago,
it
might
have
been
an
average
grosser
with
the
action,
emotions
and
Ajay
Devgn’s
performance
—
his
face
is
far
less
smooth
but
his
talent
has
not
blunted.
It
is
nostalgia-evoking
to
see
how
our
films
used
to
be
in
the
past
—
unashamedly
massy,
with
lip-sync
songs,
awful
comedy
tracks,
ghastly
off-the-rack
costumes,
loud
generic
background
music,
unsophisticated
fight
sequences
without
the
use
of
wire
work
or
CGI,
and
to
hell
with
continuity!
A
man
(Ajay
Devgn)
is
found
unconscious
on
a
beach,
with
bullet
wounds.
When
he
recovers,
he
cannot
remember
anything.
He
marries
Pooja
(Bhumika
Chawla),
the
doctor
who
treated
him
and
gave
him
the
name
Shekhar
—
that
immediately
dates
the
film
if
the
actors’
unlined
skins
don’t
the
name
has
fallen
out
of
vogue
in
films
at
least.
They
live
in
an
isolated
mansion
in
Manali,
have
a
daughter
(Shriya
Sharma)
whom
Shekhar
dotes
on,
and
there’s
that
family
song,
which
has
been
mercifully
dropped
from
today’s
films.
A
glimpse
of
his
face
on
television
brings
murderous
goons
to
his
house,
and
with
muscle
memory
kicking
in,
Shekhar
kills
them
all.
There
must
have
been
a
part
of
his
past
that
involved
violence,
so
to
protect
his
family
from
another
attack,
he
goes
to
Mumbai
to
find
out
who
he
was
and
why
are
people
out
to
kill
him.
It
can
happen
only
in
films
that
a
female
sidekick,
a
hooker
named
Lovely
(Sameera
Reddy)
attaches
herself
to
him.
As
soon
as
he
is
seen,
word
goes
out
that
Amar
Kumar
is
alive,
and
hordes
of
armed
men
and
as
well
as
cops
go
after
him.
Lovely,
of
course,
falls
in
love
with
Shekhar/Amar,
and
is
willing
to
risk
her
life
to
help
him
solve
the
mystery
of
his
identity.
There
were
no
smartphones
and
info-spewing
computers
then,
so
it
takes
driving
around
and
being
shot
at
regularly
to
get
closer
to
the
truth.
Miraculously,
traffic-free
Mumbai
roads
are
found
for
shootouts,
and
the
hoodlums
go
running
about
having
shooting
sprees
in
hotels,
clubs,
and
a
cop
station
—
the
only
one
calling
for
the
police
is
a
cop!
It
eventually
gets
to
the
old
go-to
plot
device:
If
there
is
a
wife
and
a
daughter,
they
are
meant
to
get
kidnapped.
Today’s
action
films
are
slick
and
far
more
violent.
Even
a
high
level
of
crowd-pandering
does
not
work
at
the
box
office.
If
Naam
was
made
today,
there
wouldn’t
even
be
enough
audiences
to
boo
it
out
of
the
halls.
It
is
the
kind
of
film
that
slips
out
of
the
mind
in
the
time
it
takes
to
get
home
from
the
theatre.
But
Naam
has
time
travelled
from
2004,
when
films
could
have
a
slap-dash
look
and
audiences
were
far
less
demanding
and
far
more
forgiving.
Naam
Review
Rediff
Rating:
