Our friendly neighbourhood Taliban kidnaps the two journalists and hitches a ride to the border in their van.
Unless you take the friendly Talibani, reluctantly wielding the AK 47 to be of the same fraternity as the one-eyed Mullah Omar and the bearded Mr Bin Laden. But other than a handful of sad-looking Pakistan soldiers and solitary shots of a decrepit tank, there is little to suggest the terror within. The film unfolds essentially as a road movie and Kabul Express is the name of the van which transports two Indian journalists (John and Arshad) in search of a good story through war ravaged Afghanistan. Understandably, it would have been difficult to translate the murky politics of oil, American imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism on celluloid, but mere conversational references to contemporary history can hardly compensate for the real thing. If the filmmaker wanted to make a United 93 or a World Trade Centre - films which have successfully captured 9/11 and its aftermath - then his film on post 9/11 Afghanistan ends up as a mere docu-feature that skims through the rugged terrain and the terrible tales that hide within. Yet, ironically, Afghanistan has been so much in the news now, that any attempt to go there and not get the real story - the war, the destruction, the resurgence of the Taliban, the American excesses - can only fill the viewer with a sense of loss.
Afghanistan has grabbed the headlines for so long now that any attempts to set up a camera there should be able to grab eyeballs. For Kabul Express is a travelogue - rarely made in India - set in the badlands of Taliban country. If debutant director Kabir Khan wanted to give the innovative cinema buff a taste of exotica, he somehow succeeded.
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