The Terrorist

Perhaps it's easy to shoot a good-looking low-budget film if you live in a country as beautiful as India. Or maybe director Santosh Sivan is so good that it just looks easy. Whatever the case, The Terrorist counts John Malkovich among its biggest fans, and it will doubtless gain a bigger following on the L.A. screen. Beautiful 19-year-old Malli (Ayesha Dharkar) has become a hardened killing machine since the death of her brother in the ongoing struggle with Pakistan. After undergoing an extensive audition process, she is chosen for a suicide mission to kill the Indian Prime Minister, her reward for which is to have lunch with the mysterious and highly esteemed terrorist leader (in a neat touch, the camera is always placed such that we never see the leader's face). What initially seems like a small-scale quest story, as Malli journeys through the mine-infested jungle with a young wild boy named Lotus, turns into something else entirely when Malli is placed with a half-mad farmer, under cover as an agricultural student. Working the land, and sleeping next door to the farmer's comatose wife, she slowly begins to second-guess her suicidal directive, and soon learns a secret that may drastically change the course of her life -- if, indeed, she is to live at all. The action is ably backed by a score (composed by Sonu Sisupal and Rajamani) that's just this side of bombastic, like an Indian-flavored take on the music used in Lucio Fulci zombie flicks. The actors as they appear on screen are heartbreakingly perfect, so it's unfortunate that much of the dialogue seems looped. Nonetheless, as a meditation on fanaticism, war, and the cycle of life, The Terrorist is a strong piece.