Film Review: Gandhi Godse – Ek Yudh (2023)

REVIEW

“Gandhi Godse – Ek Yudh” is based on Asghar Wajahat‘s play and is a fictional narrative based on the historical incident of Gandhi’s assassination. In this film, Gandhi and his assassin Nathuram Godse confront each other after an attempted assassination.

I like the concept of alternate reality, the ‘What If’ philosophy. And I don’t remember if Bollywood has ever pulled such a string and that too for a historical incident. Gandhi’s assassination is an ultra-sensitive case because Gandhi’s devotees guaranteed the flagship of secular patriotism and strengthened its roots in the Congress party. But Godse the assassin belonged to Hedgewar‘s right-wing Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Malaviya‘s political party Hindu Mahasabha. So Godse and his fellow devotees holds the flagship of Hindutva patriotism. This ideology gave birth to Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 and since then, Congress and BJP became bitter political rivals.

The reason for watching this film was to observe how would Gandhi have led the newly freed India from the British Raj and what would Godse have done after failing to assassinate Gandhi. The film marked comeback of director Rajkumar Santoshi after a 10-year hiatus but my observation about the film is that the story and screenplay was too soft. Gandhi-Godse exchanged interesting debate but it lacked intensity. Godse who carried fury to shed blood and kill the Mahatma was like a heartbroken boyfriend in front of Gandhi in the prison.

The film completely lost the grip when Gandhi is imprisoned by his own loyalists and is actually allowed to put in Godse’s cell on Gandhi’s request. The story did conclude with a politically poetic end and Rajkumar Santoshi smartly left their fate open in loose ends.

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CLOSING REMARKS

Did ‘Gandhi Godse’ serve the purpose? The idea was brilliant but I am afraid the story failed to revise the complex history. If I was offered to make a film based on such ‘What If’, I would have uprooted Gandhi and Godse from the pages of history to the 21st century India as the spirits in the middle of some riots and make them argue about the present India and their ideologies.

The performances were below-par and A. R. Rahman‘s score was stereotypical, nothing special nor innovative. An impressive pitch that failed in the presentation.

RATING 2.5/10

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Film Review: Neeyat (2023)

STORY

Business tycoon Ashish Kapoor (AK) invites his family and close friends to his residence in a Scottish castle and throws a birthday party one day. Each of the invitees has a different kind of dispute with him. Meanwhile, AK also invites a CBI officer Mira Rao to arrest him for running away from his home country over non-payment of salaries to his 10,000 employees and owing 200 billion rupees to the Indian banks.

The party does not proceed as planned and AK infuriates everyone. But to everyone’s shock, AK dies in mysterious circumstances. Mira senses that one of the invitees murdered AK. So Meera investigates the crime, searches for the culprit, and judges their neeyat.

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NEEYAT ON KNIVES

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Like every critic and audience of the film, I will also raise a similar theory that ‘Neeyat‘ highly reminds me and looks to be inspired from ‘Knives Out‘ and ‘Glass Onion‘ as well as Agatha Christie‘s narrative style of detective novel. Knives Out was released worldwide in the last quarter of 2019, so it is highly likely that director Anu Menon would have taken the inspiration and presented her version of Knives Out but without giving the credit to be Knives Out’s official remake. But taking inspiration from Glass Onion is very unlikely because that was released by the end of 2022. Whereas Neeyat was released 7 months after Glass Onion.

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A CAST WITHOUT BLAST

In any case, Neeyat comes with an interesting story with a talented cast but surprisingly, Anu Menon fails to thrill me because the entire murder mystery was badly written and directed. I felt if the makers had zero passion to rock my world for at least 90 minutes and drop my inquisitiveness towards drawing the line of suspense and head towards a shocking revelation.

What also astound me was the actors in the film being over-dramatic. No one bothered to drive us into contemplation by their performances. They were just rich on the camera but not by acting skill. Actors like Neeraj Kabi, Shahana Goswami, Rahul Bose, Amrita Puri, and Ram Kapoor left no impression at all.

Vidya Balan in the lead as Mira Rao was the only who did favor and after a really shocking revelation, her being so bad as a CBI officer made sense. Now when I rewind a few moments of her character’s body language against every development of that day, her strange attitude completely makes sense.

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BAD EXECUTION

What goes wrong with the film is the poorest execution of the entire script that certainly held promises. First of all, Neeyat was unfit to be made as a film. It should have been a limited series. Second, the appearance of a huge casting for the film breaks the spine because neither many characters grew with time, nor they developed with others in the same room. And this is a vital reason why Neeyat must have been a limited series. Third, the developments built no tension at all. If someone got killed besides AK, it didn’t crash the audience. The screenplay was sagging. Fourth, as per my calculation, it took 53 minutes to officially kick off the main purpose of the story. Not that if 53 minutes were spent in building the tempo before the crime. It was just not pacing with so many characters indirectly demanding to have their respective screen minutes.

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CLOSING REMARKS

Project Neeyat is a plan failed by its engineers and contractors. The hired labors not utilized properly. A magician forgetting his trick or Genie disappearing from the lamp. Neeyat is a failed concert with the spectators walking out and Vidya Balan on the drum watching her band leaving with drumsticks in her hands hanging in the air.

RATING 4/10

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Film Review: Ghoomer (2023)

STORY

A highly promising cricketer Anina is selected for team India to tour England but she meets a tragic accident that causes her to lose her right hand. When she gives up on her career, enters former cricketer Paddy who revives her dream to play for her country when he trains her as an orthodox left-arm spinner.

‘Ghoomer‘ is a fictional sports drama that took inspiration from the Hungarian shooter Károly Takács whose right hand was severely injured in a grenade explosion during World War II but went on to win two Olympic Gold medals by shooting from his left hand.

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PLUSES

Coming up with such a fascinating story is a definite plus. The credit must be given where it is due. The other pluses are Abhishek Bachchan‘s performance, Amit Trivedi‘s main theme, and the dramatization of human resilience and the determination and the extreme hard work of achieving something unthinkable and believing in the dreams.

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MINUSES

As a critic, I must also highlight why ‘Ghoomer’ ghoom my expectations. Unsurprisingly, there are more minuses than pluses in my observation. One major fault is a bizarre setup of the actual world because anything is certain to happen in Bollywood. Shabana Azmi who plays Anina’s grandma is more of cricket analyst than her grandmother. My criticism is that the emotional value of a grandmother was brutally lacking. Especially, when Anina met accident and then considering whether getting trained from Paddy was the right decision or not.

And then a heavily drunk club member Paddy to whom everyone respects despite his ill behavior God knows why. How such person is allowed to enter the ground and mix up with junior cricketers? How Anina’s family accepted Paddy’s presence at home to meet her in her room? Paddy was responsible for Anina’s fate. How was Anina’s father speaking highly about him to Anina?

How come Anina’s tragic accident never reached to the news media? After all, she was getting selected for the national team. Losing her hand immediately after getting selected was a massive news that would have rocked the nation. She daily practiced at Paddy’s yard later and no news channel or media rep caught such a sensational development. How come no investigation was carried out over Anina’s accident? Why no police went in search for the mysterious car that hit Anina?

If any of you noticed, in plenty of sequences, Ghoomer preferred to be too musical than exchanging dialogues. Observe the first half an hour, over paced screenplay, lame soft humor, and no build-up in the making of Anina, the future face of Indian women cricket team.

And the final half an hour provide you the cringiest aesthetics of a cricket match. No surprises at all and Anina’s predictable heroic performance. When Anina’s improvised bowling action is revealed, almost everyone starts spinning like her, even the spectators of the rival team, even the patient and the doctor while watching TV. Although, this all is likely to happen but my problem is why Bollywood has to make a cricket match a larger-than-life entertainer. Why a cricket match in the Indian film always loses a quality screenplay? Why this becomes a circus show? First of all, how is Anina selected for the national team? She was not even tried for local matches.

Saiyami Kher as Anina was the heart of the story but the performance was below par. Her facial expressions and dialogue delivery are poor. The only plus about her acting was that she did learn to bat and played some good shots.

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CLOSING REMARKS

R. Balki had a good run of films at the beginning of his directional career. The story pitch in his recent films is still impressive but the execution in recent years has been disappointing. Ghoomer’s middle portion was more impressive than the beginning and the ending phases. The film chose to entertain rather than give a thoughtful piece of intelligent sports tale.

RATING 4/10

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