Movie Review: 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' - a superficial saga

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, Martin Donovan, Nelsan Ellis, Imaad Shah, Adil Hussain, Haluk Bilginer and Meesha Shafi 

Director: Mira Nair 

Rating: ** 1/2 

The film, based on the acclaimed novel of the same name authored by Mohsin Hamid, is a typical Mira Nair film in terms of the cascade of colours, textures, frames and characters. Unlike the novel, the films is a blunt, slow and pretentious work of art. 

It's about the meteoric rise and fall of a Pakistani migrant in the US. 

The film begins with an intimidating situation, where an American professor at Lahore University is kidnapped. The CIA with the help of Bobby (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, tries to ferret out information about the kidnapping through Changez Khan, also a professor at the same university.