A Wednesday!

A Wednesday!
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Neeraj Pandey
Produced by	Ronnie Screwvala Shital Bhatia Anjum Rizvi
Screenplay by	Neeraj Pandey
Story by	Neeraj Pandey
Starring	Anupam Kher Naseeruddin Shah Jimmy Shergill Deepal Shaw Aamir Bashir
Music by	Sanjoy Chowdhary
Cinematography	Fuwad Khan
Editing by	Shree Narayan Singh
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures Anjum Rizvi Film Company A Friday Filmworks
Release date(s)	September 5, 2008
Running time	103 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

A Wednesday! is a 2008 Indian thriller drama film written and directed by Neeraj Pandey. It stars Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah in the lead roles. Set between 2 pm to 6 pm on a Wednesday, the film depicts an about-to-retire police commissioner narrating a sequence of events that unfolded on a particular Wednesday. They do not exist in any written record, but only in his mind and in those of several individuals who were involved, both willingly and unwillingly, and how those events affected the lives of all the concerned people.

The film was sleeper hit at the box office grossing over Rs. 34 crores. Despite its low hype, it was a box office success due to critical acclaim and positive word of mouth. Critics credited the movie for its effective storyline and particularly its twist ending. Subsequently, it won a number of awards including the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director at the 56th National Film Awards.

Plot

A Wednesday! opens with Mumbai police commissioner Prakash Rathod resting after a jog, describing in a voice-over that he is going to retire the next day, how numerous people have been recently questioning him about the most challenging case he had to deal with in his entire career, and how he has been deliberately evading the questions.

As his voice-over ends the film switches into a narrative, showing the events that occurred on a certain Wednesday. An unnamed man is shown to strategically carry a travel bag, assumed to be explosives, in the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station and proceeding to place the bag, under the false pretense of lodging an FIR, in the toilet of a police station near the Mumbai Police headquarters. He then calls Rathod and informs him that five bombs have been placed in throughout Mumbai, which are programmed to explode simultaneously within four hours unless the commissioner gives in to his demands and releases four militants. In response, Rathod immediately alerts his intelligence research and surveillance team, tapping all the resources in gathering preliminary information and tracing the location of the caller. Meanwhile, the caller tips off television news reporter Naina Roy, telling her to reach the police headquarters immediately as it is going to be "the most important day of her life". Rathod suspects the anonymous caller to be bluffing, but his doubts are dispelled as the caller, to prove his seriousness and the police force's helplessness, reveals that a bomb has been planted in the police station opposite the police headquarters. He tries to trigger the bomb through a cell phone, but it is found in the nick of time and defused.

As Rathod and his team desperately try to locate the caller, the four militants demanded by the caller are taken to the place specified by him.

At this point the story takes a remarkable twist proving everyone's belief about the caller's intentions as wrong and ends on an idealistic note, with Rathod admitting that they all knew the common man was disturbed because of the insecure environment and the incompetence of the governing authorities but he never imagined a common man to go to such lengths and have the guts to do something like that.

Cast

• Naseeruddin Shah as the unnamed caller
• Anupam Kher as Prakash Rathod, commissioner of police
• Jimmy Shergill as Arif Khan, ATS officer
• Aamir Bashir as Jai Pratap Singh. Pl
• Deepal Shaw as Naina Roy, television journalist
• Mukesh Bhatt as Khurshid Lala
• Gaurav Kapoor as Ajay Kapoor
• Chetan Pandit as chief minister
• Virendra Saxena as Baburao Patil
• Snehal Dhabi as Shambhu
• Kali Prasad Mukherjee as Ibrahim Khan
• Rohitash Gaud as Ikhlaque Ahmed
• Rajendra Chawla as Jaishankar Tiwary
• Vijay Bhatia as Mohd. Zaheer
• Parag Tyagi as Aakash Wadhkar
• Aayam Mehta as Shankar Patil
• Alok Narula as Raj Sharma
• Parth as Anuj Sharma
• Seema Malik as Priya Singh
• Vicky Ahuja

Development

Though a work of fiction, the script was inspired by the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. In fact, the incidents that followed the bombings were used as details in the plot.

After finishing the script, Pandey sent it to Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, who were his only choice for the two principal characters. Once both accepted the roles, he approached producer Anjum Rizvi who liked the subject and the casting. Meanwhile UTV Motion Pictures heard of the project, took it on, and bought the film’s rights from Rizvi and Pandey.

Production

From casting to completion, A Wednesday! took about eight months. It was filmed on location around Mumbai in 28 days. The terrorist's ‘workstation’ was an actual under-construction 25-story building; it was chosen from 50 other such buildings for its clear view of the Mumbai skyline. Since the building had no elevators, a trolley lift was installed; but Shah walked up the 25 floors every day.

Release

The film's release was delayed as UTV own production Mumbai Meri Jaan (2008), also based on the Mumbai train serial blasts, was scheduled for an August release. Wednesday! was released in September alongside Hijack and Santosh Sivan's Tahaan.

Reception

In a Tehelka review, while commending Neera Pandey for a tightly scripted film, "red herrings, finely etched characters", also noted "(for the film), the real Anupam Kher, whom we met in Saransh, and the real Naseeruddin Shah, whom we knew from Bazaar and Mandi and Sparsh, both show up."

• Subhash K. Jha, 27 August 2008, "Anupam Kher impresses Narendra Modi with 'A Wednesday'"newkerals.com
• Elvis D'Silva, 5 September 2008, "Watch Wednesday", Rediff India Abroad
• Nikhat Kazmi, 5 September 2008, "A Wednesday - Best shot by Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah", The Times of India
• Gaurav Malani, 5 September 2008, "A Wednesday: Movie Review", The Economic Times
• Rajeev Masand, 6 September 2008, "Masand's Verdict: Any day, watch A Wednesday", IBN Live
• Nikhat Kazmi, 5 September 2008, "A Wednesday", The Times of India
• Nikhil Kumar, "'A Wednesday' -Could make your day", ApunkaChoice.com
• A Common Man, "'A Wednesday' - A Story of an Aaam Aadmi that gives you the feel of Freedom! A must watch movie!" [1]

Awards and nominations

Star Screen Awards

• Won Best Director - Neeraj Pandey
• Won Best Story - Neeraj Pandey
• Won Most Promising Debut Director - Neeraj Pandey
• Nominated for Best Background Music - Sanjoy Chowdhury
• Nominated for Best Editing - Shree Narayan Singh

Filmfare Awards

• Nominated for Best Director - Neeraj Pandey
• Nominated for Best Actor - Naseeruddin Shah

Asia Pacific Screen Awards

• Nominated at 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards at Queensland Australia

Prequel

On 14 April 2009, it was announced that a prequel for A Wednesday! is being planned by the film makers. Employing the same cast, it is to be directed by Pandey's assistant. As UTV owns the rights to the title, an alternative would be chosen, as it being produced by Neeraj Pandey himself.

Remakes

The film was remade into Tamil/Telugu starring Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal/Venkatesh as primary roles.

In Telugu it was remade as Eeenadu (2009) and in Tamil it was remade as Unnai Pol Oruvan (Someone Like You) (2009). UTV sold the rights of the film to Asia Media and Gemini Media, which remade it into A Common Man, starring, Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross.

External links

• Official website
• A Wednesday at the Internet Movie Database
• A Wednesday Movie At Videos2Movies.com