Director Hansal Mehta’s Omerta, starring Rajkummar Rao as British-born Pakistani terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh, will stream on OTT platform Zee5 from July 25.
An expertly staged thriller about a baffling paradox of a man, the film traces the journey of the Sheikh who played an anonymous role in some of the world’s most defining acts of terror from the kidnapping of tourists in Delhi to the Kandahar IC814 hijacking to 9/11 to the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder to 26/11 attacks on Mumbai.
The film is National Award-winning director Mehta’s attempt at presenting the character’s journey for the audience to interpret while ensuring there is no over-dramatisation of events.
“This was my fifth collaboration with Rajkummar Rao and perhaps one of his biggest challenges as an actor. After having made films like Shahid, Citylights and Aligarh together, we were exploring a character's inner darkness through this film's protagonist Omar Sheikh. This is a film I'm very proud of and it had predicted then, Omar Sheikh is on his way to an acquittal by Pakistan's apex court,” says director Hansal Mehta.
After premiering at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and doing rounds of several national and international film festivals, where it received wide appreciation, Omerta was released in theatres in May 2018 to positive reviews by the critics. And, if you had missed it then, it is a good time to catch up on this important documentation.