Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad (QAZ) brings a novel twist in the tale when it comes to dealing with corruption. What if the founder of the nation gets angry and disappears from the currency?

Nabeel Qureshi and Fizza Ali Meerza’s film promises to soar high with this original premise that is, unmistakably Pakistani, but made in a somewhat mediocre, Bollywood-ish style.

Gulab (Fahad Mustafa) is a corrupt cop and a really swell guy; really, he is. He is fun and funny, and can take care of a dozen bad guys without breaking a sweat — more importantly though, he takes care of his people. If he has a happy payday (courtesy whomever he is taking bribes from), then there’s no reason why he can’t share the wealth. Like many of his ilk, he simply loves “Quaid-i-Azam” — which everyone in Pakistan knows is the popular shorthand for money.

His whole department, including his boss, the Inspector General (Mehmood Aslam) — save one lone honourable inspector (Irfan Motiwala) — love Quaid-i-Azam as much as Gulab.

Director Nabeel Qureshi and producer Fizza Ali Meerza’s Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad walks a tightrope between a uniquely Pakistani idea and a Bollywood texture mostly successfully. But hitting the technical bull’s eye doesn’t make it engaging

Rolling in moolah that he stashes away in canisters, in makeshift attics, under clothes in cupboards, and in a hole in the wall behind a big picture of the founder of the nation in his bedroom, everything is hunky dory in Gulab’s world.

He likes a spunky girl (Jia, played by Mahira Khan) who loves animals so much that she runs an animal shelter, doesn’t shy away from belting out justice once in a blue moon (he abhors alcohol peddlers and wife-beaters) but, at the same time, has no qualms about taking money to threaten old ladies who runs small burger stalls (the old aunty parked her business in front of a famous food joint and had legit permits).

Gulab’s love for the money is only bested by corrupt politicians. One particularly immoral and crafty specimen — and the big baddie in the film — is played by Nayyer Ejaz (who else?).

Not everyone is like Gulab, however. His dad (Qavi Khan, whose younger version is played by Faiq Khan) is a retired cop who tried to instil in him the virtues of their noble profession when he was a pup. One day, dad tells Gulab an important life lesson about respecting money: he says that the Quaid (whose picture is always on the currency notes) is vigilantly watching everyone, and should Gulab do anything that is dishonest, then he will anger the Quaid.

This makeshift fable haunts Gulab when the Quaid actually disappears from money. At first befuddling the victims, the dilemma of the disappearing Quaid becomes a pandemic for the corrupt.

The big idea, like Nabeel and Fizza’s earlier films Na Maloom Afraad and Actor in Law, is newfangled and uniquely Pakistani. The execution, like in every one of their previous titles, is a bit of a letdown.

Stuck between Pakistani ideas and an ever-present Bollywood-like texture, QAZ consciously walks the tightrope with the fear of falling on either side. This is a tough balancing act and, for whatever it is worth, the filmmaking duo succeeds.

QAZ embraces the essence of Rohit Shetty’s Singham movies (Gulab is more like Simbaa than Singham by the way), whether it is the film’s first action sequence — where Gulab crashes his car in slow-mo into a baddie-run warehouse — or his constant slow-motioned swaggered walk-aways at the end of the scenes, or the introduction of the lion he saves and with which he slo-mo walks away, there is a lot of Bollywood on the screen.

On the page, especially where screenwriting principles come into play, you can see that the duo have ironed out their shortcomings. Characters’ motivations, the use of specific elements that will help shape the story, the proper use of high points in the plot, reversals, a big climax, everything checks out.

However, similar to most Bollywood films, structural integrity doesn’t save the narrative and hitting the technical bull’s eye doesn’t make QAZ engaging (the cinematography by Rana Kamran ranges between okay and somewhat good, and the editing by M. Arif, Asif Mumtaz and Nabeel Qureshi is fine).

There is nothing offensive about the story, nor is there too much sermonising. Like so many Indian films one sees these days, the sequences make narrative sense, but they don’t move you emotionally.

Fahad Mustafa is charismatic, not spectacular. Mahira Khan, who brings on a lot of bubbliness, feels miscast, playing a throwaway heroine the way they are written in big commercial Bollywood movies — she brings little to the story other than being the love interest. Nayyer Ejaz does what Nayyer Ejaz does best. Saleem Mairaj, who plays a low-level dirty cop, dominates a scene that takes place in a crowded bazaar in Saddar.

The soundtrack by Shaani Arshad is okay, with one foot-tapping song (Loota Rey) and a smooth, easy-going romantic number by Ali Zafar (Dil Karey).

The much-hyped action sequences function as the bookends of the film. One is the aforementioned pre-title sequence, and the other happens at the climax, where Gulab blazes through the streets on his bike (the traffic is computer-generated), propels himself off a ramp on to the wheels of a plane in midst of take-off (also computer-generated), and clashes with baddies.

Visually — and visual effects-wise — both sequences have finesse, but they come and go in a jiffy, as if the runtime of their inclusions were severely impacting the budget.

QAZ could have been a game-changer. As a film, it is arguably Nabeel and Fizza’s second-best offering since the first Na Maloom Afraad but, like most of their filmography, it strives to be grand and entertaining but falls short of expectations. You will enjoy it but forget it just as easily.

Released by Eveready Films in association with Filmwala Pictures, Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad is playing in cinemas right now. It is rated ‘U’

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 17th, 2022