Suparna Banerjee

The movie is about a blind,depressed man who finds a new meaning in life by being instrumental in saving an aspiring adolescent from being expelled from his school for choosing the path of integrity at the crossroads of life.The storyline and direction is not remarkable but Al Pacino excels in the role of the blind,abrasive-outside-but-gentle-inside,suave,lonely and somewhat volatile colonel.It's just because of his powerhouse performance that one can sit through this long movie waiting for any grand turn of events which actually doesn't happen as the movie rolls on to a very clichéd ending.One begins by hating the aggressive,ill-tempered colonel but as the movie unfolds we can't but feel sorry for this frustrated,embittered man with his bottled-up romanticism,repressed sexuality and unfulfilled dreams of a normal life.Al Pacino has not only lived the role but has become one with it and played the part of a blind man so convincingly and so grandly that one feels like giving him a standing ovation just in the manner he earned it in the movie after delivering the stirring speech that decided the fate of his young companion.