No heroine for Naseeruddin Shah

It seems that actor Naseeruddin Shah is enjoying his stint with debutant directors. After creating a few ripples with A Wednesday!, the actor is back to playing realistic roles.

With Michael, Naseer is making a comeback as a male protagonist after five years, in a role that’s inspired by the trials and tribulations of a tainted cop. The story also apparently has shades of the internal struggle that has been made famous by the character Jim, in the novel created by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) who also wrote the famous novel, Heart Of Darkness.

“Anurag Kashyap is making the film with Naseer, but for some reason he decided not to direct the film. The baton has been passed onto a newcomer called Ribhu Das Gupta who has been assisting Anurag in some of his earlier projects. It is a psychological thriller about a senior cop who has been falsely convicted, the present vicious political scenario and the emotional relation between Michael, the cop and his son,” says a source.

The most astonishing part of this film is that, it doesn’t have a heroine. “Shah is the male protagonist after a gap of five years. The film has Purab Bhandare play his son. But there are no heroines in the film,” the source adds.

However, Naseer informs that there is a female actor (Mahie Gill), but she won’t be the heroine (or the female lead) in the true sense. “After A Wednesday, Michael is my truly intriguing performance and I really enjoyed working with Purab and Mahie. My character has shades of emotions, sympathy and internal conflicts weaved in with reality,” says the actor.

Quips Ribhu, “Michael is a rare film in which the father, son syndrome has been dealt with at length and care. We shot the film at real locations of North Kolkata which have a growing touch of decadence now from a rich, cultural heritage.”