''Bombay March 12'' is a 2011 Malayalam–language

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

based on the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts. The film marks the directorial debut of noted screenwriter

Babu Janardhanan Babu Janardhanan is an Indian screenwriter and director, known for Malayalam films. Biography Personal life He was born at Changanassery, Kerala, as the son of Mr. Janardanan and Mrs. Pankajakshi. Babu Janardhanan did his schooling at Madapp ...

Mammootty Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail (; born 7 September 1951), known mononymously by the hypocorism Mammootty (), is an Indian actor and film producer who works predominantly in Malayalam cinema, Malayalam films. He has also appeared in Tamil l ...

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council *Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

and

Unni Mukundan Unnikrishnan Mukundan (born 22 September 1987), commonly known as Unni Mukundan, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Malayalam cinema. He has also acted in a few Telugu and Tamil films. Unni Mukundan made his acting debut with the Ta ...

play the lead roles. The narrative is in a hyperlink format. It was released in theatres on 30 June 2011. It was dubbed in Hindi as ''Hadsa Bombay March 12''.

Plot

The story is about Sameer, a sweeper with the Alappuzha Municipality, who is always on tenterhooks because he is on the police radar whenever there is trouble or an act of terror occurs. Later it is revealed that his brother-in-law Shahjahan was suspected to be part of the terror team that had planted bombs in Bombay in 1993 and was later killed in an encounter with the Army in Andhra Pradesh. The narrative moves back and forth, slowly connecting Sameer with Shahjahan who had gone to Bombay as an IT professional and from whom much was expected by his family. The innocent youngster gets entangled in the web of a terror group and goes into hiding fearing the safety of his loved ones.

Cast

as Sameer / Sadananda Bhatt *

as Shahjahan *

as Abidha *

Sudheer Karamana Sudheer Karamana (born 24 May 1971) is an Indian actor who appears mainly in Malayalam cinema. He is the son of veteran actor Karamana Janardanan Nair. Personal life He is the eldest son to actor Karamana Janardanan Nair and Jaya, at Karamana ...

as Anti Terrorism Squad Officer * Shari *

Sadiq Sadiq is a male name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Ja'far al-Sadiq, the 8th-century Muslim scholar and scientist, considered as an Imam and founder of the Ja'fari school of jurisprudence by Twelver and Isma'ili Shi’as, and a major f ...

Lijo Jose Pellissery Lijo Jose Pellissery (born 18 September 1978) is an Indian filmmaker and actor who works in Malayalam cinema. Known for his unconventional approach in directing, his films are characterized by nonlinear storylines and very long takes. His best ...

Anil Murali Anil Murali (12 April 1964 – 30 July 2020) was an Indian actor in Malayalam cinema. He acted in more than 200 films. He started out in the film industry as a villain before later taking on character roles. He died on 30 July 2020, as a re ...

Lal Lal ( fa, لعل, hi, लाल, bn, লাল, ur, لال, ps, Lāl) is an Indo-Iranian surname and given name, which means "darling", "precious", or "beloved", from the Sanskrit ''lala'' ("cajoling").''Dictionary of American Family Names''F ...

* Rajeev Govinda Pillai as Mushruf * Saranya Sasi as Amina * Jyothi Krishna * Seema G Nair * Baby Diya *

Akhil Dev Akhil (in Devanagari: अखिल {{IAST, akhilā) is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian given name, which means "everything" or "complete". The equivalent feminine name is Akhilā. See also *Akhil (disambiguation) Akhil is a masculine given name of India ...

* Chemban Vinod Jose

Production

Casting

Sameer, one of the two characters played by Mammooty in the film, is inspired by the

People's Democratic Party People's Democratic Party or ''variant thereof'', could refer to: * People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan *People's Democratic Party (Belize) *People's Democratic Party (Bhutan) *People's Democratic Party (Chile) * People's Democratic Party (Dom ...

leader

Abdul Nasser Madani Abdul Nasar Ma'dani, also known as Abdunnasir Ma'dani or Mahdani (born 18 January 1966), is a controversial person, Islamic cleric, and the leader of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Kerala, India. Mahdani was accused of involving in 1998 C ...

's long incarceration as an under-trial in a Tamil Nadu jail. Likewise, Sameer spends nine and a half years in jail as an accused in a blast case and is finally acquitted of all charges. The director says that the film transmits not just the trauma of Madani but of every under-trial who had to undergo long imprisonment. "Only the core idea is taken from real life and the rest is fiction. Madani is a political leader. But Sameer is presented as an ordinary person", he said.

(Krishna), who plays a major supporting role in ''Bombay March 12'', was formerly working as an assistant to veteran director

A. K. Lohithadas Ambazhathil Karunakaran Lohithadas (10 May 1955 – 28 June 2009) was an Indian screenwriter, playwright, film maker, and producer who worked in the Malayalam film industry. In a career spanning over two decades, his films have won a National ...

. Model-turned-child artiste Babydiya makes her film debut with ''Bombay March 12''.

Filming

Production commenced on second week of February 2011 and was completed from

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

and parts of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

and

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

. Originally filmed in

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

, it will have dubbed releases in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

. There was uzz that ''Bombay March 12'' might be shot in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

as well.

Music

''Bombay March 12'' features an original score composed by

Prashant Pillai Prashant Pillai (born 8 September 1981) is a music producer and composer from India. Early career After completing his Sound engineering in Chennai, he went on to work with A.R.Rahman. After a short stint with him, he moved on and settled in ...

. The soundtrack to ''Bombay March 12'' is composed by Afzal Yusuf.

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

singers

Sonu Nigam Sonu Nigam (born 30 July 1973) is an Indian singer, music director and actor. He has been described in the media as one of the most popular and successful playback singers of Hindi Cinema and Kannada Cinema. He has been honoured by the Governme ...

and

Sadhana Sargam Sadhana Sargam (née Ghanekar, born 7 March 1969) is an Indian singer known for her playback career in Indian cinema predominantly in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and Tamil language films. She is a recipient of the National Film Award and Filmfare ...

recorded Malayalam songs for this film. The song titled "Chakkaramavin Kombathu" has lyrics by Rafeeq Ahmed. ; Track listing

Critical reception

''Bombay March 12'' received positive reviews upon release. Paresh C. Palicha of

Rediff.com Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 e ...

said, "Bombay March 12 is a promising debut for scriptwriter Babu Janardhanan as a director." He rated it three in a scale of five (). and said "The storytelling is complicated and you need to be focused as every scene exposes yet another layer of the story, something Babu Janardhanan did as a writer in the Lijo Jose Pellissery directed '' City of God''. But there is always a niggling thought at the back of our minds that the point he is trying to make – that 'one bad egg can spoil the whole basket' – could have been conveyed just as well in a more simple and linear narrative." Mammootty's performance is appreciated as "one of his most subdued roles in recent times". According to Palicha, Unni Mukundan as Shahjahan "does full justice to the confidence that the director has reposed in him."()

References

{{Reflist *https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1886449/reference 2011 films 2010s Malayalam-language films Films scored by Afzal Yusuf 2011 crime drama films 2011 thriller drama films Indian films based on actual events Films set in Mumbai Films set in 1993 1993 Bombay bombings Films about terrorism in India Films about organised crime in India Films set in Kerala Films shot in Mumbai Films shot in Hyderabad, India Films shot in Kerala Films shot in Alappuzha Films shot in Rajasthan Films shot in Coimbatore Hyperlink films 2011 directorial debut films