SHOOT ON SIGHT/IF YOU DARE

Here is a film to challenge the meaning of going to the cinema. Should it be an act of escapism? Or something much more meaningful? Something life changing? Perhaps even life saving!

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But for the world to go on and to right a few wrongs, the flight into the fantasies of James Bond / Harry Potter land could do with some balancing by forays into films closer to reality.

Enter Shoot On Sight, a terrifyingly honest look at the world of London’s 7/7 – July 7, 2007 – suicide bombings which snuffed out 52 lives and blighted many, many more.

Already wishing you had opted for the latest Hollywood blockbuster instead? That’s understandable.

But please remain seated because SOS not only provides some challenging sociological comments. It is also a riveting thriller.

The focus is actually the streets of London immediately after the bombings and the way the explosion impacted on Londoners’ thinking.

For example, the Metropolitan Police’s decision to henceforth shoot suspected terrorists at the drop of a hat or anything else equally suspicious.

The film’s star cast includes Brian Cox (The Bourne Supremacy), Greta Scacchi (Presumed Innocent), Naseeruddin Shah (A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Om Puri (Charlie Wilson’s War) and Sadie Frost (The Krays).

Filmed on location in London, Shoot on Sight is directed by Jagmohan Mundhra, an American-citizen born in India, who was living in London at the time of the 7/7 terrorist attacks.

After the 7/7 bombings, he found, not surprisingly, that the way he was perceived by Londoners was completely changed and that even the most basic of everyday routines had been irrevocably altered.

For example?

"Taxi drivers would not stop for me," notes Mundhra.

A tiny point, but telling.

In the film, the events are much more dramatic: an innocent Muslim is killed by the police in the wake of 7/7 and a successful Muslim police officer – born in Pakistan, married to an English rose - is asked to head up an internal investigation to hunt-down suspected suicide-bombers.

On the surface, this is a good move by the Met. The appointment of a Muslim, not the killing.

But the investigation is quickly clouded by allegations of racism and religious profiling and, understandably, the man in charge, finds it tricky and then some to find the best way forward.

In short, this is distinctly not a popcorn movie. But it may well be the kind of fare that intelligent people have been hungering for.

Shoot on Sight will be released in the UK nationwide in July 2008.

You can view the trailer now www.shootonsightthemovie.com .

Posted April 20, 2008.