BLANK is well directed and performed and is based on the relatable events of terrorism. Sunny Deol’s fans will love him in an action packed role after a long time. At the box office, it will be an average fare!

A loud, overstretched thriller starring Sunny Deol in rescue mode…

The theory that all bearded men are terrorists is reinforced in this Sunny Deol thriller…

Fails to fill the void it creates!

Despite Sunny Deol’s Presence the Film Fails to Pack in a Punch

Karanvir, Ishita get their moments in the sun but are not allowed any shots at cornering the limelight. That privilege is reserved for Sunny-Karan.

Action-packed and exciting but far-fetched…The crux of the drama hinges on a plot which appears borrowed from B-grade potboilers of the 1980s

The film could have been sharper and crisper had the makers not got carried away with Sunny Deol’s presence in the film.

As is mandatory in Bollywood these days, Blank too insists on painting a ferocious Muslim imagery of bushy beards, severe kohl-eyes and chequered scarfs spewing distorted religious ideology to impressionable young minds

Despite the vendetta twist in the end, Blank eventually doesn’t rise above being a stilted “bad Muslim” narrative. It’s yet another film that plays on Islamophobia and it does say a lot that it comes with the backing of the BJP candidate from Gurdaspur (who plays the clean-handed ATS chief) and the Canadian journalist specialising in doing non-political interviews (who does a special end credits song, titled Ali ali).

Blank which emphasizes its over-used thrust – Islamic ‘aatankwaad’ threatening the unity and integrity of ‘akhand’ Bharat – comes off as far too generic

Sunny Deol keeps things watchable, though it is a bit odd to see those legendary, larger-than-life hands pulling coloured string across an FBI-style board of suspects. It gives the sense of a majestic jungle cat forced to play with yarn.

When you decide on a title like Blank, you must make sure that your film is exactly the opposite. Otherwise you unwittingly end up providing ammunition for critics and viewers. You remember Paul Verhoeven’s deliciously awful film about Las Vegas strippers called Showgirls.  New Yorker critic Anthony Lane had written in his review that the title is “not so much a noun as an imperative”.  Here too Blank isn’t merely an adjective, it’s an entire sensibility. Which, as you can imagine, makes for a pretty dull movie.

Summing up, given its premise, the film had the potential to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller, if only the writing and execution could have been better.

If you are looking for a glimpse of Sunny Deol’s angry man going full throttle on action then Blank could cheer you up a bit. The rest wouldn’t miss much by skipping it.

Blank is a hit-and-miss. It is a great debut for Karan Kapadia though, who despite the presence of a seasoned actor in Sunny Deol, stands out as the star of the film.

The movie has flashes of promise but just as many, if not more, moments of amateur execution. There’s also a special track called Ali Ali, featuring Akshay Kumar. Thankfully, it plays during the end credits and doesn’t really add to plentiful woes of the film.