The jingoistic dialogue and the film’s questionable message aside, this is boring, inert stuff. The director’s last film ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ feels like Citizen Kane in comparison.

Saif Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif’s Phantom is disappointing, there is no crackle, only fizz…

All this talk of intelligence, but no smarts anywhere in sight.

Stay away from Phantom. It gives audiences a raw deal.

Watch Phantom just for the character actors if you have to. All of them — Sohaila Kapur, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Sabyasachi Chakraborty — deliver power-packed performances, as if to compensate for the lead pair’s lack of acting skills.

It’s all fake fakery and yet the film and its hero and heroine keep their lips pursed in solemn seriousness, making the whole affair dull rather than fun. Some measure of irony would have helped. But it’s not there only.

Parts of the film are tight and paced well. Some of the suspense is delivered properly; others, lost in transmission. Phantom begins fine, and then loses way so badly that by the end, you’re just waiting for an extra helping of Afghan Jalebi. Among the songs, that’s the one that stays on the mind long after the credits roll.
By the end of Phantom, one is left with a disarray of emotions within.

Phantom is a hotchpotch of many Hollywood films such as Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Mission Impossible series, Captain Phillips and towards the end even Titanic. The end result is a thriller sans thrills.

Phantom has nothing extraordinary and satisfying about its revenge tale of 26/11. It is a pity that not one scene gives you a sadistic pleasure in seeing the suspects get killed. Those lazy to read Mumbai Avengers could watch it but mind you it is not half as intelligent.

The spark and drama of Bajrangi is not there and the fairly terse action drama of Ek Tha Tiger is missing. What we end up with is a screenplay which has as much fizz as a cola that has been left open for a week.

The film, based on Hussain Zaidi’s book Mumbai Avengers, moves you only towards the end, especially when you realize that 166 people died in the 26/11 terrorist attack, and that none of the terrorist masterminds have been punished.

Which is why, this monumental tragedy needed a throbbing, emotional film that could express the collective nation’s angst. It’s disappointing indeed to see a film with such a passionate story, turn out this bland and lackluster!

Even if you let go of sanity of the bigger picture, the little things are a bother too. Facts are repeated to help you make the connect. The filmmakers must be confident that the audience is not going to pay attention because the fact was mentioned 5 minutes ago. All it does is add minutes to the film that the film doesn’t need.

But hey, if you don’t watch the film, the extra minutes won’t bother you.

I wish the film engaged me a bit more. 26/11 attacks enraged the entire nation. It made us feel vulnerable. A film that deals with it should stir my patriotic sentiments. I should be able to empathise. Alas, it felt like a decent film on anti-terrorism, something that I have already seen before.