Based on true events that occurred less than a decade ago, The Diplomat brings to the screen the story of a steely Indian diplomat who goes all out to help an Indian woman in dire distress in Pakistan.
The film has all the ingredients of a conventional Bollywood drama – an intrepid Indian hero up against daunting odds, a woman in grave trouble and a nation where all the bad guys are. The Diplomat isn’t, however, an average movie.
It isn’t even a thriller in the conventional sense. It starts off slow, builds up gradually and, once it hits its straps, it clicks firmly into place. For lead actor John Abraham, the film is a marked departure from norm.
Abraham sheds his action hero persona and slips into the skin of the titular protagonist, a man who plays by the rules. The striking restraint of the performance is in perfect sync with the controlled tone that gives the film a solidly convincing core.
Director Shivam Nair (Naam Shabana) and screenwriter Ritesh Shah (Udham Singh, Faraaz) keep a tight rein on the narrative, keeping it as close to the bones as any fictional rendering of a real-life incident can be.
The Diplomat is an intense and engaging drama that steers clear of overt violence and undue melodrama. At the heart of the film is a hero who brooks no opposition and a tenacious young woman determined not to let her misfortunes get the better of her.
The male protagonist’s masculinity does not stem from what he does with his fists – he does nothing. He plays saviour to the harried lady, but a great deal of the latter’s fight for freedom rests on her own strong will. It is rare for a star-driven Hindi movie to give us central characters that are as firmly rooted in the real world as these two. Although caught in a harrowing situation, they speak and act like actual people.
The Diplomat isn’t, for sure, a fearless expose of an organized cross-border racket. The girl that India’s envoy sets out to rescue is a one-off case. The film focuses on an Indian serving an important cause, represented here by an intense negotiation over a girl whose fate hangs in the balance.
None of the strands of the story is allowed to acquire larger than life proportions. The film may be driven by the notion that almost everything is wrong on the other side of the border and that the grass is greener on this side of the fence. But it stops shy of bashing a nation.
As far as career diplomats go, few would be as brawny as John Abraham. But the tough man that the actor plays, J.P. Singh, deputy commissioner in the Indian high commission in Islamabad, uses his brain and his innate intrepidity in the service of the nation – and the story.
Making one’s way around the dauntingly frosty complexities of India-Pakistan relations is no child’s play. So, what the diplomat seeks to achieve in the face of severe adversities amounts to an act of enormous courage performed in the line of duty. He is a soldier minus the battle fatigues.
Of course, the audience knows that he will pull it off no matter what. How he does it is what constitutes the substance of the story. Much of it is eminently watchable. The diplomat navigates a bunch of knotty issues that are at play as he tries to free Uzma Ahmed (Sadia Khateeb) from the clutches of a rogue who lures her across the border, holds her captive and tortures her.
Uzma’s troubles begin when she meets Tahir (Jagjeet Sandhu), a seemingly amiable guy, in Malaysia. The man takes her to one of the most lawless parts of Pakistan and heaps unspeakable atrocities on her before forcing her into marriage.
When all appears to be lost, Uzma manages to give Tahir the slip and ends up in India’s Islamabad embassy, where Singh not only gives her refuge, he also swings into action by activating the political and diplomatic machinery to help her out of the tight spot she has landed in.
A long, arduous battle ensues and Singh is called upon to walk a tightrope so as not to let the unpredictable nature of Indo-Pak ties queer the pitch. As he doubles down to the task, the diplomat keeps the then Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj (played by Revathi).
His adversaries are a handful of nasty people who aggravate the rescue mission, but not everybody in Pakistan is on the side of evil. He has the active support of a Pakistani advocate (a terrific Kumud Mishra), who throws his lot behind Uzma.
Nair moves away from his favoured domain of intrepid secret agents – besides Naam Shabana, he co-directed the espionage series Special OPS and Mukhbir: The Story of a Spy – and delves into the world of diplomacy where caution and measured tactic, and not muscular, armed interventions, hold the key. The shift informs the film in both substance and spirit.
While the film does not flinch one bit from bringing out the horrors that Uzma endured, it stays well within the limits of reality even if that means confining the lead actor within a defined and constricted dramatic space and doing away with the commercial elements that inevitably overrun into Bollywood films of this nature.
The Diplomat harps upon the theory that in Pakistan the law is often followed more in the breach than otherwise, but it does not actually go in for the ‘failed nation’ refrain beyond what is essential for the setting of the stage for the moves that JP Singh makes without expectations of a pat on the back.
Of course, the audience is given enough reason to root for him and Uzma. The script, based on accounts provided to the screenwriter by the two key real-life personages, does nothing to undermine the tangibility of the tale.
Cinematographer Dimo Popov, who also shot Mukhbir: The Story of a Spy, lends the film sustained visual solidity, enhancing both the intensity and the restlessness that JP Singh’s mission entails.
The Diplomat gives John Abraham the opportunity to flesh out an individual not given to knee-jerk reactions to provocations. He does justice to the role.
Sadia Khateeb, who previously played one of the sisters in the regressive Akshay Kumar starrer Raksha Bandhan, is allowed all the space that she needs to demonstrate her wares.
Kumud Mishra, as always, and Jagjeet Sandhu, in the role of a shockingly detestable man, are both solid. Sharib Hashmi makes the most of a part that could have done with some more footage.
As for the film as a whole, it gets just about everything right. And that, needless to say, is no mean feat.
