Muzaffer Ali's Jaanisaar is a cautionary tale of a film with a half-baked script and pretend patriotism. The film opens with Naseeruddin Shah's voice reading aloud the contents of a letter that apparently contains Lord McCaulay's take on how India's culture and education system must be destroyed if the country is to be enslaved. Next, one watches a wandering poet/fakir/random dude with long, white hair (Ali himself) wandering the woods on his horse, where he comes across a bunch of decaying corpses hanging from the trees.

It is 1877 in Avadh, twenty years after India's first 'war' of Independence. A handsome prince returns from England, falls in love with a 'tawaaif', and gets to know some deep dark secrets about his parentage. He also learns that the British are not-not all of them, at any rate - the truthful people he has come to believe; some of them can be conniving liars and savage murderers.

Period films attempt mental transportation to a different time. This one drives you mental enough to beg for deportation to the present, before you can endure the 125-minute-runtime of this film. The period, in this case, happens to be the 1800s, when the British Empire was finding its feet in Indian soil. When Lucknow was scattered with Rajas in anarkalis, courtesans simultaneously grinded several betel leaves in their mouth and everyone spoke chaste Urdu.

Abbas is Ameer Haider, an Indian prince raised in London by Queen Victoria. She here is essayed by an actor who, if it were not reminded repeatedly to viewers, could be easily mistaken for his help. Qureshi is Noor, a heavily dolled up courtesan who can sing, dance and also fight, rather unconvincingly we may add. He is faithful to the British Raj, she to Awadh. On return to his homeland, Ameer sees Noor dancing and is (somehow) smitten with her. His loyalty for the white people soon begins to waver.

"Humein bhi pyaar kar le Hamari bhi khabar le Arey bana kar Dil-o jaan jee jigar le Jo paaye jam khali Ijaazat hai ki bhar le..." These lines are by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah Akhtar, the ruler of Awadh who is better known for his poetry. Muzaffar Ali, director of the acclaimed, 1981 classic Umrao Jaan, uses the them as lyrics in a song, in Ali's latest venture, Jaanisaar. It's meant to impress, but unfortunately, all it serves to do is make the hollowness of Jaanisaar painfully evident.

'Inspired by true events', Jaanisaar begins with Naseeruddin Shah's voice over telling us how the British had initially thought it was impossible to capture the then wealthy India because of its rich heritage and culture. If they were to do so, they had to kill this very 'tehzeeb' which made us invincible.