‘Ground Zero’ (2025) Movie Review - Emraan Hashmi Protects Kashmir in a Dull Action Thriller

It's impossible not to think about the recent Pahalgam attack while watching Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar's Ground Zero. At least 26 people were killed when the terrorists opened fire on tourists who had visited the Baisaran meadow in Pahalgam. It was nothing but an act of cowardice, which is precisely what these attacks tend to be. One cannot even begin to imagine the pain of the victims and their families - it's a horrible tragedy, and the culprits need to be severely punished. The terrorists attacked the tourists on the basis of their religion, and it's sad to see that many people have already started to demonize an entire community based on their religion. Isn't this exactly what those terrorists wanted? Even the enemy has detected our weak point; they have understood how to divide the Indians. But given the statements of solidarity and strength that have emerged with equal force amidst blind cries of bloodlust, it has become clear that it's not that easy to defeat and divide Indians. There is still room for sane voices; together, we can combat hate with rationality and ammunition.

You only need to be human to understand that terror attacks are ugly, deplorable, and utterly inhumane. In the realm of cinema, the depiction of such assaults instantly moves you to the verge of tears. A filmmaker must be sensitive and sympathetic to touch our deepest emotions. But Deoskar reminds you of Karan Singh Tyagi in the worst possible manner. I wrote about Tyagi's inane and ineffective choices during the Jallianwala Bagh sequence here. Deoskar does something similar in Ground Zero by "pumping up" the effect of a despicable attack through lame emotional manipulation. The scene I am referring to unfolds at a school where a soldier is shot with a gun. What the terrorists do is already repugnant, but Deoskar underlines the nastiness through the shot of a little girl crying amidst the chaos. She is BSF officer Narendra Nath Dhar Dubey's daughter, and in an earlier scene, she says she wants to ride the school bus with Santa Claus. Deoskar lays down a cutesy layer to increase the impact of the gunshots, which is just a cheap way of putting your point across. Such decisions merely reflect the director's lack of trust in the audience. Deoskar thinks that we are so obtuse, so numb, that without the shot of a crying girl, we won't be able to recognize whether the ongoing action is right or wrong. He desperately wants to make us feel things because Ground Zero itself is too obtuse and too numb.

Deoskar is a cold, impersonal director. We see everything but react to nothing. Even the rousing speech (Pehredaari bahut ho gayi, ab prahaar hoga) is not very rousing here. Ground Zero is toneless and style-challenged. It's too busy trying to be "sophisticated," so it shows how soldiers, too, can engage in ego battles, and that Kashmiri locals/Muslims can be kind, patriotic, and innocent. Hussain (Mir Mohammed Mehroos) helps Narendra (Emraan Hashmi) find the location of a hakim (Qazi Faiz) and, subsequently, Ghazi Baba (Rockey Raina). How does Ghazi realize that his location has been compromised? A kid accidentally knocks down Hakim's medical box, and the tracker, which Hussain had secretly planted, falls out of the hidden compartment (writers Sanchit Gupta and Priyadarshee Srivastava don't even try to be intelligent). Anyway, Ground Zero displays no interest in learning anything substantial about Hussain or other Kashmiri youths/locals. Narendra goes to Hussain's house, takes the bullets, gives money to his sister (Khusboo), and leaves the premises. What does Hussain's mother (Sheikh Neelofar) think about the whole incident? Is she okay with the fact that her son is in touch with a terrorist group? Or is she unaware of Hussain's shenanigans? We never learn what Hussain and his mother discussed after Narendra visited their house. According to the film, the mother and her son might have never even talked to each other. The filmmakers are incredibly incurious. They use their characters as cardboard cutouts. The text during the end credits provides us with the names of many officers honored for their bravery and their services. However, in the film, Narendra's friends/fellow soldiers merely foreshadow their deaths by speaking in a sweet, warm, polite manner. In one of the scenes, they quickly crack some code words, and Ground Zero doesn't get into the logic of solving such a task, of completing such a process.

The movie is detached from its story, its setting, and its characters because it's preoccupied with taking a stand. This is an Excel Entertainment production, which means it's produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar. Hashmi, in the lead role, steps into the shoes of a patriotic BSF officer, while Zoya Hussain, as Aadila, plays the role of an Indian agent. Sai Tamhankar's Jaya, meanwhile, is Narendra's wife who exposes and strikes the dirty, sensational side of the media. The filmmakers silently indicate that patriotism isn't exclusive to a particular religion. It's a potent, timely message, but couldn't they have made an engaging, potent film as well? Ground Zero has two endings, and both are equally dull and frigid. The second one, though, fills you with embarrassment (it fulfills the Santa Claus demand). In Rahul Pandita's The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur, when Narendra and his team enter Ghazi Baba's house (or more accurately, the third floor), they get frustrated because there is nothing much in the room, except for a few cushions, a dressing table, and a mirror. When the carpenter, who had identified the house, is brought up, he simply says sheesha (mirror), after which a soldier lifts his rifle and hits the mirror. This is how (in the book) Narendra and his team found and executed Ghazi Baba. In Ground Zero, however, Narendra himself figures out that there is a room behind the mirror. He is the only smart person, the only smart soldier in the force. Narendra receives so much credit, so many pats on the back, that the end credits text, containing the names of other soldiers and officers, feels trivial. Perhaps this is why Sanjiv Sharma (Mukesh Tiwari), Narendra's boss, looks so pissed, jealous, irritated.

Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times