New York Times Movie Review
Friendships in the Big City, Bent by 9/11
By RACHEL SALTZ Published: June 27, 2009
Kabir Khan’s “New York” looks at America after 9/11 through a Bollywood lens — and it’s less distorting than you might think. The story, which engages issues of ethnic profiling and terrorism, hinges on loyalty, love and friendship, a holy trinity of Hindi cinema.
Parts of the film play like a typical Bollywood romance. Before 9/11 a triangle forms — and is sealed in a song montage — at the leafy New York State University. Sam (John Abraham), who has been in the States since childhood, and Maya (Katrina Kaif), an American-born Indian, befriend Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a newer arrival from Delhi. The athletic, all-American Sam wins Maya’s love. And then history intrudes.
Spoiler alert, from here on: After the terrorist attacks an innocent Sam gets in trouble with the F.B.I., which tosses him in a detention center, refuses his request for a lawyer and tortures him. (There’s a brief depiction of waterboarding.)
The ultrabuff Mr. Abraham, who has made a career of displaying his toned torso, here uses his body to show the privations that flesh is heir to. In a particularly powerful shot, a naked, shackled Sam is curled into a tiny boxlike cell that fills the movie frame.
While Mr. Khan’s depictions of American life occasionally seem silly and the plot has some crater-size holes, “New York” is continually fascinating. It benefits from the performance of Irrfan Khan, who adds layers of complexity to his character, a Muslim F.B.I. agent who recruits Omar to spy on Sam.
Indian films often deal with the problems faced by a Muslim minority. Transposed to the American context, those problems continue to resonate.
NEW YORK
Opened on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Kabir Khan; written by Sandeep Shrivastava; director of photography, Aseem Mishra; edited by Rameshwar S. Bhagat; music by Pritam; production designer, Norman Dodge; produced by Aditya Chopra; released by Yash Raj Films. In Hindi, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: John Abraham (Sam), Irrfan Khan (Roshan), Katrina Kaif (Maya) and Neil Nitin Mukesh (Omar).
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges