| A Wednesday ! | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Neeraj Pandey |
| Produced by | Ronnie Screwvala Shital Bhatia Anjum Rizvi |
| Screenplay by | Neeraj Pandey |
| Story by | Neeraj Pandey |
| Starring | Anupam Kher Naseeruddin Shah Jimmy Shergill Deepal Shaw Aamir Bashir |
| Music by | Sanjoy Chowdhary |
| Cinematography | Fuwad Khan |
| Editing by | Shree Narayan Singh |
| Distributed by | UTV Motion Pictures Anjum Rizvi Film Company A Friday Filmworks |
| Release date(s) | September 5, 2008 |
| Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
A Wednesday! is a 2008 Indian thriller drama film written and directed by Neeraj Pandey. It stars Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah in the lead roles. Set between 2 pm to 6 pm on a Wednesday [1], the film depicts an about-to-retire police commissioner narrating a sequence of events that unfolded on a particular Wednesday and which do not exist in any written record, but only in his mind and in those of several individuals who were involved in it, both willingly and unwillingly, and how those events affected the lives of all the concerned people.
The film was sleeper hit at the box office grossing over Rs. 34 crores. Despite its low hype, the film was a box office success due to critical acclaim and positive word of mouth. Critics credited the movie for its effective storyline and particularly its twist ending. Subsequently, it also won a number of awards including, Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director at the 56th National Film Awards.[2]
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The film opens with Mumbai Police Commissioner Prakash Rathod taking a respite after a jog, describing in a voice-over that he is going to retire from office the following day, and how numerous people have been recently questioning him about the most challenging case he had to deal with in his entire career, and how he has been deliberately evading such questions. As his voice-over ends the film switches into a narrative, showing the events that occurred on a certain Wednesday. An unnamed man is shown to strategically carry a travel bag, assumed to be explosives, in the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station and proceeding to place the bag, under the false pretense of lodging an FIR, in the toilet of a police station located near the Mumbai Police headquarters. He then calls up Rathod and informs him that 5 bombs have been placed in different locations throughout Mumbai, which are programmed to explode simultaneously within four hours unless the Commissioner gives in to his demands and releases four militants. In response, Rathod immediately alerts his team involved in intelligence research and surveillance, tapping all the available resources in gathering preliminary information and tracing the location of the caller. Meanwhile, the caller tips off television news reporter Naina Roy, telling her to reach the police headquarters immediately as it is going to be "the most important day of her life". Rathod suspects the anonymous caller to be bluffing, but his doubts are dispelled as the caller, to prove his seriousness and the police force's helplessness, reveals that a bomb has been planted in the police station right opposite to the Police headquarters. He tries to trigger the bomb through a cell phone, but it is located in the nick of time and defused.
Meanwhile, as Rathod and his team desperately try to locate the caller, the four militants demanded by the caller are taken to the location specified by the caller.
At this point the story takes a remarkable twist proving everyone's belief about the caller's intentions as wrong and ends on an idealistic note, with Rathod admitting that they all knew the common man was disturbed because of the insecure environment and the incompetence of the governing authorities but he never imagined a common man to go to such lengths and have the guts to do something like that.
Though a work of fiction [1], film's script was inspired by 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, in fact the incidents that followed the bombings, were used as details in the plot of film. [3]
After finishing the script, Pandey sent it to Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, who were his only choice for the two principal characters. Once both accepted the roles, he approached producer, Anjum Rizvi,who also liked the subject and the casting. Meanwhile UTV Motion Pictures heard of the project and took it on, and bought over film’s rights from Rizvi and Pandey.[3]
The film was shot on location around Mumbai in 28 days. The location of terrorist (Naseeruddin Shah) ‘workstation’, was an actual under construction 25-storyed building, it was finalized from 50 other such building enlisted in the city, for it clear view of the Mumbai skyline. SInce the building has no elevators, the trolley life was installed, though Shah walked his way up to 25 floors everyday. [4] In all, from casting to completion the film, took about eight months.[3]
Film's release was delayed as UTV own production Mumbai Meri Jaan (2008), also based on the Mumbai train serial blasts was scheduled for an August release, finally Wednesday was released in September.[3], alongside Hijack and Santosh Sivan's Tahaan.
In a Tehelka review, while commending Neera Pandey for tightly scripted film.."red herrings, finely etched characters", also noted " (for the film), the real Anupam Kher, whom we met in Saransh, and the real Naseeruddin Shah, whom we knew from Bazaar and Mandi and Sparsh, both show up." [5]
On 14 April 2009, it was announced that a prequel for A Wednesday is being planned by the film makers. A Wednesday. Employing the same cast, the film is to be directed by Pandey's assistant, and as UTV owns the rights to the title, A Wednesday, an alternative would be chosen, as it being produced by Neeraj Pandey himself. [7][8]
The film is remade into Tamil/Telugu starring Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal/Venkatesh as primary roles. In Telugu it was remade as Eeenadu (2009) and in Tamil it was remade as Unnai Pol Oruvan (Someone Like You, 2009). [9] UTV sold the rights of the film to Asia Media and Gemini Media, which remade it into A Common Man, starring, Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross. [10]