Movie Review: 'Mohenjo Daro'

The movie has rather rotten resemblance with Bahubali from a partial plot point of view. A son of royalty (of that time!) stroked by destiny and brought up in modesty shows bravery running in his blood and is strongly drawn towards his roots. Overruling his guardians’ wish, he visits his homeland, gets a pretty girl, enjoys with her, comes back to the story, knows the history of injustice to his father, gets angry, bashes up sidekicks and goons, and resolves to bring justice. That is all about it. The only thing is – it’s done unconvincingly. Rather, boringly.

The protagonist, Sarman (Hrithik) is a bronze-coloured, brown-haired young man in the village of Amri. To show how adventure-loving he is, the first scene of the movie creates a dull hype of his heroism when he kills a crocodile with his trident, and the village goes all clapping for him. That night a one-horned animal (ek-singaa) at a river bank pops into his dream, and the next night he decides to go to Mohenjo Daro without even knowing why. He goes there to trade and predictably falls in love with the only good-looking chick named Channi (Pooja Hegde). He gets to know the evils of Maham (Kabir Bedi), challenges him, and again predictably does what a hero should do. Protect the people and destroy the devil. The movie ends with a surprisingly summarizing note. The way those Sindhu waters demolish Mohenjo Daro is quite symbolic of the movie doing the same to our hopes with similar intensity. However, there are four reasons to rejoice: Rahman’s music, a few glimpses of the debutant beauty, intermission, and the arrival of end credits.

While I admire Ashutosh Gowariker to adopt a difficult subject and put his soul into it, I can’t help share what it felt watching. Sarman looks quite kicked to see Mohenjo Daro, partly by the feeble script and therefore mostly by overacting. Hrithik’s thirst for knowing ek-singaa matches his earlier curiosity of knowing Jaadu in Koi Mil Gaya! His nimble limb movements are the only watchable thing left in his acting which too has a limited scope in this movie. Pooja Hegde is beautiful in her role that revolves around revolving around Mohenjo Daro, receiving salutes, and enjoying attention (much like that road traffic inspector in a small town). She wears a bunch of feathers on the headgear and a long fine gown stitched in a way that reveals just enough skin that, I am sure, must have worked as a generous incentive for people of Mohenjo Daro to bow down to her in guise of respect. This is because she is the daughter of a priest and at her birth some holy chap declared that she had the blessing of the mother Sindhu, the river everybody respects and swears by. Thanks to this belief, she seems to be the only girl bestowed with a designer tailor while the rest of the cast wears whatever Ashutosh could muster to give a historical touch.

Sarman emerges as the most eligible bachelor of that era. He is handsome. He knows how to control a mad horse. With his God-gifted engineering skills he designs and helps make the entire bridge of boats to save people in the midst of the horrendous flood. He is not a PMP certified but he executes the entire evacuation project with impeccable timing. With his leadership traits he delegates duties and saves himself at the very last only after ensuring the headcount. All that is fine but Channi seems to like him may be because he can dance without rehearsal and kiss without fear. Just joking. Her character barely bothers and looks lacking passion. The chemistry between the leads looks cold. Kabir Bedi’s acting involves giving his naturally crooked smile, adjusting his ridiculously funny horn-crown, and manipulating a vote of hands. Mentioning the rest would be as time-wasting as watching this movie.

Movie Review: 'Wazir'

It is rare when a movie-song possesses you more than the movie and it either keeps on playing itself inside of your mind or comes out through your humming. But there is no way stopping it. This soothing song – Tere Bin - is a delicate stream of silken, romantic lyrics voiced by sugar combo of Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal. It begins as the movie begins and while ending it makes sure of taking away the smiles you had while it was on. Not because the movie is terrible, but it slips into a serious plot.

Danish Ali (Farhan Akhtar), an Anti-Terrorism Squad officer, has a happy life with his wife Ruhana (Aditi Rao Hydari) and his daughter until the daughter gets killed in an inadvertent gunfight. Danish revenges this by killing the goon responsible for his loss and gets himself suspended. Already a guilt-ridden father and a blamed and neglected husband, he gets bumped into a master chess-player, Pandit Omkarnath Dhar (Amitabh Bachchan). Danish finds an empathetic friend in Pandit who is a sharp brain with a wheelchair-bound body, appearing a wise man despite his own dilapidated life. While teaching Danish chess and life-lessons emanating from it, he lays his case of bringing justice to his daughter who he firmly thinks was murdered by a politician. Danish buys into his theory after a gentle probe. He promises to save him when Pandit gets life-threatening warnings from Wazir (Neil Nitin Mukesh), the hired toughie of a politician. Danish takes this to his heart a bit too much as a personal challenge. He wears a fanatic resolve and leaves Ruhana uninformed who has barely forgiven him under Pandit’s wisdom. May be he fears that given his track record, there is no chance in hell she would allow him to prove himself a hero. He then goes hunting for a politician for his chess-buddy’s justice and protection. The obvious gets thrown up as a surprise, elaborated liberally to ensure the audience gets it, but trust me, it is tiring, at least in some stretches towards the end.

The performances of the leads are impeccable and hold the movie together despite their characters are forced by the fragile script, especially in the second half. Farhan is fantastic as a failed father, Aditi is good in her quiet role of a heartsick mother. Bachchan is as good as his character in the game. It pains me even to think of the necessity of roping in John Abraham and Neil Nitin Mukesh. The movie seems to have been made to bring out suspense, I gather. If you ask me whether to watch this or not - my ultimate reaction will be that of the politician in the movie when he is asked about Wazir! - Don’t know what to say. But when I picture those sincere faces of Farhan and Bachchan, who put their best to make the movie really work, I would say, go watch it once, for them.