Ground Zero is inspired by the real-life account of how a brave soldier nabbed a very dangerous terrorist. The film has a no-nonsense approach; the focus is on the story. There’s no room for jingoism and it tries to be as authentic as possible. The track of the protagonist’s friendship with a local is heartening. The climax is nail-biting and the film ends on a clapworthy note. On the flipside, the interest level drops in between as the film gets slow. It also gives one a déjà vu of films Uri, Article 370 and also Zero Dark Thirty. As a result, one gets a been-there-done-that feeling. Emraan Hashmi delivers a stupendous performance. Mir Mehrooz (Husain) has a crucial role and is quite impactful. Sai Tamhankar (Jaya) and Zoya Hussain (Aadila) are fair in supporting roles. Ekluvya (Chand Khan), Rockey Raina (Ghazi Baba), Qazi Faiz (Hakeem, Mukesh Tiwari (Sanjiv Sharma), Rahul Vohra (IB Chief), Deepak Parmesh (Binu Ramachandra), Hanan (Ahmed) and Lalit Prabhakar (Praveen) lend able support. Ram Avatar (PM Vajpayee) looks ditto like the former Prime Minister. All in all, Ground Zero is a decent one-time watch film.
My rating – *** out of 5!