Neerja

Neerja
In the background we see a man holding a gun in the aisle of an airplane. Superimposed in the foreground, a hand presses the barrel of a handgun on a woman's forehead. Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ram Madhvani
Produced by	Atul Kasbekar Shanti Sivaram Maini Bling Unplugged Fox Star Studios
Written by	Saiwyn Quadras Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh (dialogues)
Screenplay by	Saiwyn Quadras
Starring	Sonam Kapoor Shabana Azmi Yogendra Tiku Shekhar Ravjiani Kavi Shastri Sadh Orhan
Music by	Vishal Khurana
Cinematography	Mitesh Mirchandani
Edited by	Monisha R Baldawa
Production company	Fox Star Studios
Distributed by	Fox Star Studios
Release dates	February 19, 2016 (2016-02-19)
Running time	122 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹20 crore (US$3.0 million)
Box office	est. ₹135 crore (US$20 million)

Neerja is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language biographical thriller film directed by Ram Madhvani and written by Saiwyn Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh. It was produced by Atul Kasbekar, under his banner of Bling Unplugged alongside Fox Star Studios of Vijay Singh. The film features Sonam Kapoor as the title character, with Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tiku and Shekhar Ravjiani in supporting roles. The plot centers on the Libya backed Abu Nidal Organization's hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan on 5 September 1986. The film is shown from the point of view of the flight's head purser Neerja Bhanot who thwarted the hijack attempt by alerting the pilots, hence grounding the plane and saving the lives of 359 of the 379 other passengers and crew on board, giving her life in the effort to save the others.

Development began in September 2014, when Kasbekar signed Madhvani and Kapoor for a film to be made under his banner of Bling Unplugged alongside Fox Star Studios of Vijay Singh. Saiwyn Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla worked on the script, with principal photography taking place in Mumbai. The film features music by Vishal Khurana. The lyrics for songs were written by Prasoon Joshi. Neerja released on 19 February 2016, to positive critical notice, with major praise directed to Kapoor's performance, and proved a moderate commercial success.

Plot

The film opens with 22-year-old Neerja Bhanot (Sonam Kapoor) arriving late for a house party. Later that evening her mother (Shabana Azmi) expresses concern once about Neerja's job as a flight attendant and suggests Neerja to return to her old job of modeling. Neerja likes her job and is driven to the airport by her boyfriend Jaideep (Shekhar Ravjiani).

Neerja reflects on her brief and unhappy arranged marriage. Her former husband Naresh (Kavi Shastri) was a professional in Doha, Qatar. He constantly harangued and abused Neerja over dowry and also over she could not cook or clean. She eventually returned home to honor a modeling contract. He sent back a humiliating letter attacking her parents about dowry, her lack of domestic skills and suggesting that she had better bring money back or not come back at all. She broke off with him and landed a highly competitive job with Pan Am Airways.

As Neerja boards Pan Am 73 it is revealed that a terrorist group has planned to hijack the plane in Karachi. The plane takes off from Mumbai's Sahar International Airport and lands in Karachi where the four terrorists belonging to Abu Nidal's organization board the plane disguised as security officers escorting a Libyan diplomat. They reveal themselves and hijack the plane. Neerja quickly alerts the cockpit and the three American pilots escape through the overhead hatch and run to the terminal despite firing by the terrorists.

When an Indian American accompanied by his handicapped old mother inadvertently reveals himself to be an American one of the terrorists grabs him and shoots him dead and throws him down the aircraft before the Pakistani negotiators. The terrorists try to locate a radio engineer among the passengers by having Neerja make an announcement over the intercom. Emran Ali (Shashi Bhushan), a Pakistani radio operator gets ready to stand up but Neerja signals him to sit down. Later the terrorists ask the flight attendants to collect the passports so as to locate the Americans and hold them hostage. Neerja and her colleagues collect the passports but skilfully avoid any American passports by kicking them under the seats or down the trash chutes. The terrorists, dejected over not finding any American passports, locate a British citizen and use him for negotiations.

The Pakistan negotiators inadvertently reveal the name of the radio engineer Emran Ali, who is located and roughly brought into the cockpit to start the radio and begin the negotiations. The Pakistani authorities try to stall for time. The terrorist leader chastises the other, younger terrorist who has begun roughing up the passengers and molesting the attendants. Angered by his public embarrassment the younger terrorist storms into the cockpit and shoots the radio engineer and in full defiance of his leader, screams wild threats over the radio. The terrorists are confused; the leader only wants to complete the mission but the younger man is now mad with rage and out of control. Pakistani air control is still negotiating but they are slowly losing control and time and the terrorists are getting agitated by the minute.

Around 17 hours later, the plane loses auxiliary power and the lights go out inside. Despite Neerja and the other attendants trying to explain this as a normal airplane reaction, the terrorists believe the power was cut deliberately by the Pakistani armed forces who will soon storm into the plane. In a panic mode, they now begin shooting down passengers indiscriminately . At great peril to her own life, Neerja opens the rear door and deploys the chute and begins directing passengers down the chute. Neerja chooses to let the passengers escape first. In the end, she is shot and fatally injured by the terrorists when she tries to shield young children from the gunfire. The film ends with a tributary message to Neerja who was eventually honoured posthumously with the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime military decoration awarded for valor, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield.

Cast

• Sonam Kapoor as Neerja Bhanot In an interview, she described her role as Neerja Bhanot in the film as "exhausting and exhilarating".
• Shabana Azmi as Rama Bhanot, Neerja's mother
• Yogendra Tiku as Harish Bhanot, Neerja's father
• Shekhar Ravjiani as Jaideep, Neerja's friend
• Sadh Orhan as Saad Mallik, Inzamam's subordinate
• Abrar Zahoor as Zayd Safirini as terrorist
• Jim Sarbh as Khalil, terrorist
• Ali Baldiwala as Mansoor, terrorist
• Vikrant Singta as Fahad, terrorist
• Kavi Shastri as Naresh, Neerja's ex-husband
• Bobby Arora as Ayn Zoya
• Edward Sonnenblick as Capt. Jack Snipes
• Arnold Malek as Capt. Harrison James
• Waqar Khan as Co-Pilot Richard Bertrand
• Nikhil Sangha as Akhil Bhanot, Neerja's brother
• Arjun Aneja as Aneesh Bhanot, Neerja's brother
• Ismail Mohammed Mirza as Al Turk
• Sushil Tyagi as Inzamam Younis
• Meghana Kaushik as Sanjana
• Eisha Chopra as Debina
• Sunanda Wong as Tina
• Anjali Khurana as Dolly
• Shashi Bhushan as Imran Ali, radio engineer
• Aarush Rana as Jatin Desai
• Shaurya Chopra as Shaurya Desai
• Vishwendra Singh as Akram Baig
• Chandra Thakur as Pan Am official
• Manya Chopra as Bhavika Desai
• Prashant Guptha as Rahul Kumar
• Asha Joshi as Sujata Kumar
• Alex Kozyrev as Ronnie Heston
• Ikhlaque Khan as Musthaq Khan

Production

File:Sonam Kapoor on the sets of 'Thank You' (3).jpg

Actress Sonam Kapoor was selected to play the titular character of Neerja Bhanot

Development and casting

Pre-production work on Neerja began in September 2014 when Atul Kasbekar announced his plans of making a new project with debutant Ram Madhvani. Following the success of her previous film Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) Kapoor was contracted by Kasbekar to play the female lead, the senior flight crew member who became the youngest recipient of the bravery award, Ashok Chakra in her biopic. Around 4:36 am on 6 Sep 2014, producer Kasbekar, via his Twitter handle, posted a tweet, “Do U Know Who Neerja Bhanot Is? No? Well U Really Really Should…”. On casting Kapoor in the film, Kasbekar said, “When we asked people if they’d heard of Neerja Bhanot, most hadn’t. For us then, at Bling Unplugged, a story of courage as exceptional as Neerja‘s simply deserved to be told. We just decided that we would our bit to ensure that India would remember one of its great heroines.”

On casting Kapoor in the film, Kapoor told PTI, "I thought doing this film just reaffirms that it is about not bowing down. She (Neerja) had won the Arjuna Award for bravery and is the youngest and only female to win it. I think it's commendable. It is an inspiring story for me to do. I am blessed."

It was reported in May 2015 that, Shekhar Ravjiani, one half of Bollywood's music directing duo Vishal–Shekhar, would play a short role in the movie marking his acting debut. Shabana Azmi was reported to play the role of Neerja's mother in the film.

Rucha Pathak (head of creative and development at Fox Star Studios) said the following in a statement: "When we heard the script of Neerja, we immediately knew we wanted to make the film. It's the kind of content that Fox Star instinctively believes in and wants to back. Captained by Ram Madhvani, and with Sonam Kapoor and Shabana Azmi, Neerja, we believe that this is a cracker of a film." The story and screenplay was penned by Saiwyn Quadras and the dialogues by Sanyuktha Chawla Sheikh.

A journalist friend of the director said, “So Ram you’re making this film Neerja, do you realize the responsibility that you have? You’re actually going to be building a set, you’re not even using a real plane and then you’re going to get people as passengers. Do you realize what actually happened on that plane, what kind of responsibility you have to actually portray that?”

The makers of the film admitted to the tremendous amount of responsibility the task of portraying this story carried. One challenge faced was acquiring a real plane for shooting. Because of this, the director – Ram Madhvani – & Rucha Pathak – Creative Officer of Fox Studios – decided to re-create the plane as a major part of the film required shooting against the plane back-drop. It took them 48 days to build the plane which resembled closely to the original one.

Effects

The film's visual effects (VFX) were by Tata Elxsi, which also produced award-winning VFX for blockbuster movies like Dhoom 3 and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. The India's leading company had been involved with Neerja since January 2015. VCL produced a wide range of visual effects which included: creation of Karachi airport and buildings. VCL also helped in creating the 1986 period restoration for various loactions. Huseini Barodawala, the head of Tata Elxsi said, “It has been our constant endeavor to leverage our VFX expertise to transform the director’s vision onto the big screen and offer larger-than-life experiences to all our viewers. Recreating old Bombay and the 1986 era, was one method we used to enhance the experience of the film, Neerja.”

Filming

Principal photography of the film commenced around 19 April 2015 in Mumbai. After two months on filming, the shooting was wrapped up on 19 June 2015. Kasbekar via his Twitter handle tweeted, "Amazing! And it’s a wrap on Neerja !!! 32 shooting days!!! That’s Two More days than Birdman took!"

During the principal photography of the film, many Bollywood celebrities visited the sets of the film, including Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Anil Kapoor, Raju Hirani. "I knew that getting Aamir Khan, Boman Irani, Vidya Balan, Raju Hirani and Anil Kapoor to speak to the 220 cast would help instill dedication and effort that this film would require," director Madhvani said in a statement.

Soundtrack

Neerja
Soundtrack album
Released	26 January 2016 (2016-01-26)
Recorded	2016
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	17:48
Label	T-Series
Producer	Atul Kasbekar

The film's music rights were acquired by T-Series. The music for the film has been composed by Vishal Khurana and the lyrics have been penned by Prasoon Joshi. The first song from the film was released on January 26, 2016, titled 'Jeete Hain Chal'.

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Jeete Hain Chal"	Kavita Seth, Arun Ingle, Mandar Apte, R.N. Iyer, Archana Gore, Mayuri Patwardhan, Pragati Mukund Joshi, Vishal Khurana	04:09
2.	"Aankhein Milayenge Darr Se"	K. Mohan, Neha Bhasin	02:57
3.	"Gehra Ishq"	Shekhar Ravjiani	03:27
4.	"Aisa Kyun Maa"	Sunidhi Chauhan	03:40
Total length:			17:48

Reception

The soundtrack received good response from the critics. Mohar Basu of The Times of India gave the music a 3.5 out of 5 rating, mentioning that the music "is beautiful, pensive, touching and all of it sans melodrama." He also writes that the music "is straight from the soul." Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama says that "the songs of the film heard are strictly functional and won't really be into play once the film is through." He added that the songs Aankhein Milayenge Darr Se and Gehra Ishq would make the most impression. A critic of The Quint praised the music album and said, "The brilliance of this album is that it features songs which will not hijack and/or disrupt the flow of the narrative. The sound is delicate, fearless, vulnerable and always intimate."

Release

The film's official trailer launched on 17 December 2015 on Fox Star Studios YouTube channel and social media properties. The trailer launch event will be attended by the late Neerja Bhanot's real brothers Akhil Bhanot and Aneesh Bhanot. The film's official logo was launched on 15 December 2015.

The film released worldwide on 19 February 2016. Upon release, Neerja received positive reviews and was a moderate box office success.

Critical reception

India

Upon release, Neerja received mostly positive reviews from film critics in India. Shubha Shetty-Saha of Mid Day gave 4.5 out of 5 stars to the film, concluding, "Ram Madhvani's 'Neerja' is a deeply moving experience."

The film was also praised by Delhi's Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal. He took to his Twitter handle to send the message of the film that read, "Live for others, die for others."

Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave Neerja 4 out of 5 stars and said, "Neerja raises a toast to the daunting spirit of India's daughters; every one of us must salute Neerja." Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, "As a movie watching experience, 'Neerja' is flawless. There's not a single false note." Writing for Hindustan Times, Anupama Chopra also awarded 4 out of 5 stars saying, "Neerja is a truly inspiring story that will grip you from the first frame till the last," and calling it Sonam Kapoor's best performance." Sarita Tanwar from Daily News and Analysis giving 4 out of 5 stars, said, "Neerja is quite easily the finest film in recent times (on par with 'Talvar') based on a true story." She also said that cinematographer Mitesh Mirchandani ensures that 'Neerja' is "one of the best shot films in recent times." Raja Sen from Rediff.com gave 4 out of 5 stars as well and called it "an absolute must-watch," and adding that "Sonam Kapoor is exceptional as Neerja Bhanot." Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today also gave 4 stars out of 5, saying "Neerja is clearly among the best films Bollywood has been able to gift viewers with in recent times." Rummana of Yahoo! too gave it 4 out of 5 stars stating, "‘Neerja’ deserves loud applause because not only is it an exceptional story of courage but because it is an ode to the undying spirit of humanity." The Economic Times giving it a 4/5 star rating, said, "Neerja is a must-see, not just for its cinematic value, but also as a reminder to salute Neerja's spirit."

Rajeev Masand gave a 3.5/5 rating and said, "'Neerja' is "a well-intentioned, heartfelt film that pays tribute to a real hero." Rajeev Masand of News18 also gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and commented, "There is no question Neerja will leave you with a lump the size of a golf-ball in your throat."

Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and said, "Minus the songs and the excessive schmaltz, ‘Neerja’ could have been outstanding. But still, the film holds, and hold us with it. Both Shabana Azmi and Tikku, as the parents hoping for the best and dreading the worst for their ‘Laado’ (Neerja’s ‘pet name’), are excellent."

Overseas

Manjusha Radhakrishnan of Gulf News rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and praised the film while saying that the climax of the film is powerful and makes up for that blip. Don Groves of Forbes wrote that the film fetched $626,000 on 73 screens in the U.S., an estimated $500,000 at 41 locations in the U.A.E. and $A117,000 ($84,000) on just 15 screens in Australia, posting healthy per-screen averages. The film created buzz for US release. Jason Klein of Variety declared that DAR-Film Leaderboard was notably absent of Oscar-nominated films, and part of the gap is filled by Neerja. Sonali Kokra of The National praised the film and said, "Neerja is a great story told well. Mitesh Mirchandani’s jerky camerawork does a great job of using the claustrophobic confines of the aircraft to showcase the oppressiveness of the situation and the terror of the hostages."

Box office

On its first day, the film earned about ₹47 million (US$700,000) nett, with major collections coming from Mumbai, Delhi NCR. It collected ₹76 million (US$1.1 million) nett on Saturday, while ₹97.1 million (US$1.4 million) on Sunday, hence totaling its first weekend collection around ₹210 million (US$3.1 million).

On Monday, the film netted around ₹37 million (US$550,000) with only around 20% drop in collections as compared to first day. On Tuesday, the film earned around ₹34.1 million (US$510,000). Wednesday, Thursday and Friday earnings of the film were ₹31.4 million (US$470,000) ₹36 million (US$530,000) and ₹31.5 million (US$470,000) respectively. On Saturday and Sunday, Neerja had a massive jump and earned ₹50 million (US$740,000) and ₹66.5 million (US$990,000) respectively and had a total collection of ₹501.2 million (US$7.4 million) at the box office.

On its day 11 (Monday), Neerja collected ₹21.2 million (US$320,000), ₹19 million (US$280,000) on Tuesday, ₹18.5 million (US$270,000) on Wednesday and ₹17.6 million (US$260,000) on Thursday. The film remained at the box office till its day 38 and had grossed an estimated ₹108 crore (US$16 million) domestically and ₹25.9 crore (US$3.8 million) internationally for an approximate worldwide total of ₹135 crore (US$20 million).

Tax free

The film was declared tax free by Government of Maharashtra and the Government of Madhya Pradesh.

The Finance Minister, Jayant Kumar Malaiya in a statement said, "The movies Neerja and Jai Gangaajal will be free from entertainment tax in Madhya Pradesh on account of International Women's Day which was celebrated yesterday." On this, the producer Kasbekar, thankfully replied via his Twitter handle, "Big thank you to MP Poonam Mahajan and the Hon CM Devendra Fadnavis in declaring Neerja tax free in Maharashtra. Quick and decisive decision."

Accolades

Neerja received two winning awards: the I Am Woman Award and the HELLO! Hall of Fame Awards for Sonam Kapoor.

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref(s)
I Am Woman Award	5 April 2016	Women Empowerment	Sonam Kapoor	Won
HELLO! Hall of Fame Awards	11 April 2016	Critics Choice	Sonam Kapoor	Won

See also

List of Bollywood films of 2016

External links

• Neerja at IMDb
• Neerja at Rotten Tomatoes