THE ICON REVIEW: A Bloodsucking Experience

I used to make an argument about how intelligent and unforeseen endings of films had the capability to turn one’s perspective around a full 180 degrees — that the climax had the power to turn bad experiences to good ones, and vice versa. It was an argument — no, a belief — that I stood by with unconditional conviction.
With Leech, the new Pakistani film most of you have not seen, I am no longer in the capacity to make that argument. Ever!
Leech, written by Tanveer Ahmad and directed (amongst other credits) by M. Shahzad Malik, starring Naveed Raza and Mahsam Raza, has a twisty climax (which, of course, I am not giving away) — one that undoubtedly shifts one’s perspective, and feelings, a notch. However, contrary to what I used to believe, it doesn’t wash away the “kill-me-now” feeling one feels for the film’s one-hour-and-54-minute run time.
Leech is appropriately titled. It sucks the intelligence out of your mind, the energy from your limbs and the will to sit up straight from your soul. For the better part of its duration, it stands shoulder to shoulder — chest puffed up with unwarranted, unasked-for confidence — with the worst of what Pakistani cinema offers (which is by the dozen every year).
Desperate to make a pro-nature, pro-humanity statement about concrete and greed making the rich blind and setting the poor — and the demented — out on a warpath, the film, which assumes itself to be a dark, gritty thriller, splits the story between two warped individuals. One is a cop (Israr, played by Naveed Raza), who stays away from home and his wife (Fahima Awan) and daughter (we learn why in a weak reveal of his backstory). The other is a killer of about five or so people (Baloot, played by Mahsam Raza).
With no mystery whatsoever — we’re shown that the killer is Baloot right out of the gate — the film jumps back and forth between 1995 and the present, shifting the order of scenes of the murders of a real estate tycoon, the model he is purportedly having an affair with (Adila Khan), a mill owner who is having problems with his about-to-be-unionised labour, a middle-man lackey, and an ethically and morally compromised good guy who died in the mid-90s.
That good-guy — played by Rashid Farooqi in perhaps the weakest of his undertakings; his diction, delivery and timing of dialogues are borderline amateurish — is Faris, Baloot’s father, a man of the earth who would never do wrong.
While the police in the present have no inkling, nor reason to link Faris’ death in the past to the present, they — and the screenplay — also find no discernible reason to link murders together…yet they do, with the most incredulous reason ever fathomed and then filmed.
Israr, walking in and out of the clouds of smoke he puffs out of joints and cigarettes, is adamant about his inclination that the killings are linked. In a protracted scene, Israr asks for forensic reports of the tycoon and the woman’s murder, and is promptly told that these reports take days.
“It’s an emergency!” Israr and his deputy cop (Asfand Yar) insist to the forensic head, who likes fiddling with his android phone and who, for some inane reason, states that he now has WhatsApp. Having seen a woman walk out of the forensic head’s room, Israr pointedly exclaims that modern phones with cameras are dangerous; one never knows when these devices may record footage that slips their way into mainstream media.
Why that conversation happened, or what the report reported, carry little weight or reasoning.
Israr, in a moment of sagacity, deduces that they don’t need the routine, obvious forensic report that pointed out that the two deaths were found with suicide notes of different handwritings. Israr suddenly reckons that they should note what’s missing — the flower pots, and in a flash, says that the plants don’t really matter. Say wha…?!?
The plants actually do matter, but the plot doesn’t, along with Baloot’s jerry-built motive and Israr’s constant state of gruff and a dearth of basic logic.
Using his detective-skills at the crime scene, Israr sits on the dead real estate magnate’s chair (tampering with the evidence in the process), flips the gun around on his forehead, illustrating how ridiculous it looks to shoot oneself from the front of the noggin.
The problem with the scenario is that the bullet was fired from the back of the head — so, he flips the gun around again, and ends up looking more ridiculous. Soon they find CCTV footage that links the two murders, and a shot of the man who walks out of the crime scene. To give the film its due, the psychopath is easily identified, but let go for the dumbest of pretexts.
Leech’s screenplay manufactures events and attitudes with fickle reasoning to craft a cunning, engrossing mystery that doesn’t play out very well. One suffers through scenes that belong in a college student’s amateur thesis film — a student, whose major has nothing to do with films and cinema, and who likely is not inclined to pursue the discipline after he gets his near-failing grade.
The cinematography is a furlong away from cinematic; director M. Shahzad Malik names himself the “director of photography”, but perplexingly gives the “cinematography” credit to Naveed and Fayyaz Malik. The editing by Majid Riaz is merely the stitching together of shots. If the editor had been aware, he should have cut down the excessive pauses and reactions the director let slip from the performances.
To hasten the pace and pump the heart, the music is given prominence over the action; the background music, made of looping underscores, never stops. The unrelenting score hammers the consciousness and disorients the concentration — though not enough that one doesn’t notice the production design.
Most of Leech looks cheap. I am given an indication by sources close to the production that its budget was around five crores rupees; the film looks like it was made in one crore rupees, however. Art direction and set design, also credited to M. Shahzad Malik, is limited to the props one sees lying around on the production’s rented locations. Costumes are what actors wore from home, apparently (it looks that way).
One could turn away from the technical shortcomings if the screenplay were intelligently handled, and the actors weren’t play-acting. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Mahsam needs a year of intense theatre training, followed by a year of acting on the small screen; his performance is weak and all over the place.
Naveed, who I’ve seen perform adequately in supporting and villainous roles in Chakkar, Raasta and Khel Khel Mein, is all scowls and unnecessary fidgets. His, Mahsam and Farooqi’s problems are the same: inexperienced mis-direction and an appalling script.
The premise and the twist ending, hold promise — but then again, historically, almost all premises and twist-endings held that promise.
That is, I believed they did, before Leech.
Leech, rated A, is released by Hum Films and Hum-YS Films. Word of advice: don’t buy the PR hype that uses celebratory verbs and adjectives that have nothing to do with this film
Published in Dawn, ICON, August 18th, 2024