Kabir Khan, who gave us a brilliantly directed movie, “Kabul Express” returns with his latest project, "New York", revolving around the global terrorism and its silent victims. The movie talks about the brutal torture faced by many innocent people in America after 9/11 and also touches the sensitive issue of racism in an intelligent manner.
However, it has a complete sequence taken from an OSCAR Award Winner movie, “CRASH” which came in 2005 and was widely appreciated for its insightful treatment of the subject.
The scene where Katrina’s car is stopped by the policemen and she is searched all over her body disgracefully by the officer, can also be seen in “Crash”. In the English flick, the sequence is more elaborately used to show the racist exploitation faced by the people having a different colour and the pain they have to bear due to that. “Crash” has not got a big star-cast as “New York” but it has a heart beating more gracefully as compared to the Mega Bollywood venture.
More similar scenes spotted in the movie were the ones involving John’s detention and interrogation. These particular scenes are quite close to “Rendition” released in 2007, wherein also a wife is trying to save her husband who has been taken into custody by the officials due to his foreign identity.
Apart from this, the same social issue was earlier raised in a much stronger movie made in Pakistan titled, “Khuda Ke Liye”. It also featured Naseeruddin Shah in a special role and was officially released in India too in the year 2008. The best part was that this highly praised movie tackled the issue more realistically without going into any detailed love angles added only for the commercial purposes.
