Kidnap does raise interesting questions. What is a small or a big unintentional mistake? Who decides the proportionate punishment? What if the punishment is disproportionate? To what extent should the injustice be set right? What can set it right? Maybe there are straight answers theoretically. Now what if you are the wronged person? What if the stakes are made higher with your child/ person closest to your heart is involved? But, in the tug-of-war between asking these questions and adding commercial masala, the latter pulled harder. And we have a decent story with not-so-decent execution.

Despite the superficial presentation, it’s very intriguing to see the movie balancing in the gray zone. There’s no hero and no villain. At the most there are two anti-heroes. You can’t hate or love either of them, but somehow you aren’t indifferent either. You want to know what they’ve learnt, and how they’ve changed at the end of the events.

Sanjay Dutt perfectly balances between the street-smart, conniving businessman, Vikrant Raina and the vulnerable father. True Kabir (Imran Khan) is written in good detail, he is supposed to be cynical and all. But in the eagerness to stylize the character Imran Khan’s dialogue delivery comes across as very forced. The mid-sentence pauses meant to add attitude, manage to add to the unnaturalness. The narrative, and not Imran’s performance, show how a wrong or harsh decision by one person can affect another person’s life. So much so that the latter is obsessed with completely bringing down the other person emotionally.

Unfortunately though, other parts of the writing department leave gaps in the narrative. There are a few courtesy smart lines thrown in with a full dose of inanities. What was the point of the clues? It wasn’t as if one was leading to another. How the clues are solved is not clarified. And later there are clues that are not even cryptic - they are direct messages. Then why even call it a clue?

Also, there are women in the ring too, and they have reasonable-sized screen presence; but their characters aren’t really serving any deeper purpose. Minissha Lamba absolutely behaves like a 18 year old spoilt brat, but she certainly doesn’t look like one. How many ever wet-scenes-in-white she has or however unclad she is, she doesn’t ooze oomph. Skin show is very in-the-face generally but there is something very ungraceful about it here. Her inelegant dance moves don’t help either. And she certainly cannot take on Kareena Kapoor, Amisha Patel or even Aishwarya Rai in this department.

I’m still in shock after seeing Vidya Malavade play Minissha’s mom! Though it’s a very courageous move, again the deep-necked business suits have been capitalized rather than her acting skills. So, the sum total of cleavage is tasteless and rather functional.

The movie doesn’t carry the rugged look that the promos have. It has a very color-saturated feel. That the kidnapped has a full wardrobe - matching shoes included - to her disposal adds to that feel. Did the kidnapper go shopping for her? Or did he take a pit-stop at her home on his way to where he was going to hide her? And who changed her clothes the first time? These things wouldn’t usually make it into a review, but they are so blatant that they add significantly to the already unrealistic feel. Oh yeah, there are enough engagements and wedding anniversaries thrown in to have songs with lousy music.

Unrealistic has its advantages though. A couple of actions scenes are really well choreographed and thought out. Bikes and cars are made to do a few imaginative stunts. And human beings aren’t left out. The chase scene set in an under-construction building actually has Imran doing Spiderman moves.

If only, they could have resisted over-stylizing it. Or maybe this is just a hangover from the director’s last endeavor Dhoom 2 and this is a first step towards having an actual story in an action-thriller.