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It's a little amateurish, and that takes away a few points from Tere Bin Laden . To be fair, a satire attempt is a big deal for a newcomer director. So, kudos to Abhishek Sharma for trying.

Let’s just go with the awful truth that not everyone can pull it off with the smarts which Kundan Shah showed when he gave us his pathbreaking debut feature Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro , definitely the best satire Bollywood’s made in all these years.

Tere Bin Laden tries to be a cocky account of a Pakistani reporter, Ali Hassan (Ali Zafar), who wants to migrate to the US. But his visa request always gets rejected. Ali hits upon a weird idea to realise his dream one day when he comes across a timid poultry owner, Noora (Pradhuman Singh), who looks like Osama bin Laden.

Ali decides to produce a fake video with Noora posing as Osama, and sell it to a TV channel in India. The video gets made and Ali bags some quick cash by selling it to the channel, too.

The film tries drawing its satire quotient primarily from what happens next. The Americans send their team of secret agents, headed by a pompous officer named Ted Wood (the name almost seems like director Sharma’s tribute to Tim Burton’s brilliant satire biopic Ed Wood , starring Johnny Depp). A sociopolitical commentary is attempted as Ted and company, along with the Pakistani sleuths chase the fake Osama and try to bring him down.

Tere Bin Laden was a good idea.

Almost a decade after 9/ 11, when the trauma has somewhat dulled, this looks like the right time to analyse the man- made tragedy with farcical irreverence. What this film needed was a little more intelligence. It’s one thing for a script to pretend it’s silly (that’s the hallmark of good satire in any case), but it’s quite another to unfold a story that simply lacks depth.

The young cast could have done with better character sketches. Pradhuman as the fake bin Laden in particular tends to overdo his comic act, but then the guy hardly gets scope to do better.