Movie Review: Mary Kom (2014)

Considering the fact, the boxing movies are always a great pleasure to watch like Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby and many more, same expectations are in other movie industries. In Bollywood, I remember Aamir Khan starrer Ghulam had some meat to offer although it was not really a boxing movie. Sohail Khan’s Aryan was Abhishek Kapoor’s first directional success before he went on to make Rock On and Kai Po Che. With a new trend in Bollywood of making biographic movies on sportsmen in India and with major box-office success in Paan Singh Tomar and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, we expect more from last year’s Priyanka Chopra starrer Mary Kom which despite a great box-office success, I found major disappointment.

Mary Kom is legendary figure in Indian sports and world of boxing. She holds breath taking CV with her being 4-times Asian Boxing Champion and 5-times World Amateur Boxing Champion!!! Phewww if that is not enough, then furthermore she is the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships and first Indian woman boxer to win Gold Medal in Asian Games history which happened in Incheon 3 months ago.  

As the human factor subjects prominence in many many legendary careers of greatest and finest names in sports, Mary Kom is no different as she can easily be labeled with the same line ‘an ordinary person with extraordinary story’. But for the sake of entertainment and gleaming box office success to ensure the producers earn a calculated turnover, a true story is minced and realism is denied. 

Being produced by big-pocket names Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Bhansali Productions, the director for such an important project is chosen a first timer!! :S Omung Kumar‘s CV is mostly of Art Direction and Production Designing. Name like legendary Mary Kom deserves a perfect bio epic movie with the most bullet details of her personal and professional life. Many chapters were ignored and many were framed into incorrect times and events. Her childhood part is ruthlessly ignored in minutes. Mary Kom as hardly 8-year-old child finds a glove in the beginning of movie and all of a sudden within a minute, 17-year-old Mary Kom is fighting in college :S How can one ignore the childhood part as she came from a very poor Manipur family whose bread and milk was by working slash-and-burn??

Despite a narrative sketch of brilliant husband-wife chemistry in the movie, one character the director failed to present was Mary Kom’s father-in-law, who was a very important figure in her biography. Her father-in-law was murdered by some gunmen back in 2006 and at that stage, Mary Kom blamed his death on herself and almost gave up her boxing career. Her husband had decided to join rebel group to take revenge of his father’s death. What an important phase of her life never screened!!!

The final fight against her old rival is even a joke. No such incident happen such as shown in the movie as the movie sustained its root to recognize from a typical Bollywood movie. Even the event of final fight is confusing whether it was 2008 World Championship or later. If I assume it was 2008, the movie shows that her rival destroys her in first 2 or 3 rounds and then all of a sudden, the character returns in larger-than-life contest to beat her and take the title, whereas in reality Mary Kom owned her 7-1 in the final :S

Despite winning 5 world titles, the proudest moment in Mary Kom’s career was participation in 2012 London Olympics as for the first time in Olympics history, Women Boxing was included and Mary Kom was one of 36 participants among which she reached 3rd and won Bronze Medal. How in the world director never filmed this biggest moment???

If the movie is planned to watch, then there are only two reasons. One is to know Mary Kom’s life which I have reviewed above how it has been screwed. And other reason which actually is the only plus point of the movie is the soul itself – Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom. If her mental strength was enough tested in Barfi, here she presented her physical element. Extremely tough physical exercises and her body and soul segmented between a life of boxer and wife equally raises the applauds. She surely makes you think of Million Dollar Baby’s Hillary Swank (I am not comparing ok!!). She is strong and fully ready to take on and suffer many punches in life.

In her character, the only aspect where she couldn’t catch Mary Kom probably was her Manipuri Hindi accent. That was missing. She tried her level best but that is the problem when such an important role to the artist is taught by a teacher/director but here actress has over a decade experience in her profession then the number of times Omung Kumar has sat on director’s seat while shooting.

Rating: 4.5/10

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Movie Review: Queen (2014)

Alright so this movie, this movie is box-office Super Hit with critical acclaim!! It is produced by Anurag Keshyup’s Phantom Films and Raghav Bahl’s Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao are principal casts. After already watching ‘English Vinglish‘ and ‘Cocktail‘, Vikas Behl’s Queen was no surprise package for me. The trailer already had its say but still watching the movie was a formality.

The movie starts with breakup and end of marriage!! wooaaahhh!!! now wats next, honeymoon????? typical Dilli middle-class girl Rani want to go Paris ALONE?? alright go. Her parents drop Rani bitya to the airport but guess what, Raniya bitya travel from Dilli to Paris by 3 different Air France air-crafts :’D There are three different shots of plane while take-off. Each time, the aircraft is different!! I can’t believe this!!

Rani’s first actual encounter in Paris is incidentally with a half-Indian girl Vijayalaxmi who can speak Hindi and English. What is so surprising? Am I not watching a movie? Both become friends and stay together. It is either comical or unrealistic to notice that in the first half of Rani’s Paris trip, she encounter more French people speaking their native language to her strictly rather than French speaking English in later half.

Once upon a time, both saheliyan Rani and Vijaya return hotel from nightclub and guess what!! they are caught drunk by Raniya bitya’s pariwar sitting in front of lappy while video chat… like howwww?????? ok leave this, typical sanskari pita get turn on after looking at short-dressed hot Vijaya on video chat… round of applause!!!!

Alright now she is leaving to Amsterdam ok because she want to honey-moon her trip at more than one place. Well it is a good thing to visit new places and secondly it’s her wish (none of my effing business). Now she is staying in hostel where she come to realize that she will live in hostel room with 3 international men. One is Russian, one is French and one is Japanese.

Yup she did panick but den Dilli ki simple girl adapt to the situation and become friends (Y) now their dosti will grow more and full mastiyan begin until the guy who broke supposed-to-be wedding with Rani bitya poop back and become doggy without bone to her. Do me a favor, kindly ask’em how the heck did he find her address in Amsterdam?? Did he come to realize the movie was ending in next 20 minutes??

Once Rani bitya went to locate the address which her Parisian nangi saheli Vijaya gave to locate and send her friend Roxette the gift. Next moment was jaws-open. Roxette works in pole-dance club and she is Rukhsar, a Muslim girl with absolute urdu-accent and too much urdish words which was so unnecessary but yeah hilarious. She says she has degree in commerce but due to unemployment, she choose this exotic job!!!! bravoooo….

Rani bitya seriously dont know what is she wearing???

Rani bitya go with her friends to sex-toys shop!! and she never realize where she was!!! she never felt suspicious even after wearing booby-hat!!! oh my!! do simple girls are really that innocent??? she meet a challenge from an Italian cook to bring/promote your desi food in international food competition. You really wanna know who wins the competition?? :P Then the Italian guy asks her for kiss in reply, and Dilli ki simple girl who never dared to hug Vijay the wedding-breaker actually lip-locks with the Italian guy!!! oh my this is just toooo much.

Phuhhhhh have to cut it out but boyy oh boyyy!!! Well there do are plus points. Direction was good, Amit Trivedi music was excellent and two good ear-soothers were ‘Kinaray’ and ‘O Gujariya’. Kangana has done her best shot so far, marvelous acting. She keep alerting the viewers that she is serious about her career. After ‘Fashion‘ this is her finest performance. Rajkummar original as always. Lisa Haydon as Vijaya was skin-show. Sabeeka Imam as Rukhsar aka Roxette showed the viewers where her roots belongs to, it was fantastic Urdu accent. Yup she is Lucknawi.

Movie could have ended in mere 80 minutes. Too lengthy and numerous useless scenes. End was predictable. A bogus movie.

Ratings: 4/10

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Movie Review: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)

Run! Run! Run! And never look back!!!!

He did look back and regret. The tragedy during the partition stayed in memory for decades. He was orphaned and lost almost his whole family in teenage.

He was born in 1935 in Govindpura village in Pakistan and had 15 siblings (8 lost before partition). After partition, he moved to Delhi living with his surviving and married elder sister.

Later on, he became dacoit but joined army in 4th attempt of recruitment. The army somehow introduced him to sports. Being a long-distance runner from village to school and vice versa, his running strength knew no bound and famed his running ability to National heights.

This sporting icon accomplished a lot in athletics. As athlete, he was a veteran of 3 Summer Olympics of 1958, 1962 and 1966. He was national champion in 200m and 400m race. Had won 4 Gold medals in Asian Games career. Last but not the least, the most impressive of all achievements is that till date, he is still the only Indian male athlete to win an individual athletics gold medal at a Commonwealth Games.

The legendary sportsman is Milkha Singh a.k.a. the ‘Flying Sikh’. Recently, Milkha and his daughter, Sonia Sanwalka, co-wrote his autobiography, titled The Race of My Life. But it was in the beginning of 2012, when Milkha’s son Jeev presented a script to ‘Rang de Basanti’ famed director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. To a fortune, Rakeysh had known his father’s name back in his childhood days and was source of inspiration. As a result, Rakeysh planned a biographic sports drama movie on the flying sikh with the title ‘BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG’.

Produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Rakeysh Mehra’s own ROMP, distributed by Reliance Entertainment, this ₹  30-crore movie was released on 12th July, 2013 and grossed nearly ₹  35 crore in its 1st weekend. The movie reached grossing of ₹  100 crore in 24 days and became the 21st Bollywood movie to gross more than ₹  100 crore. Prasoon Joshi heartily accepted to write the script and spent a lot of time with the flying sikh to shape a perfect story to direct. Milkha is reported to give every single detail of his life story to Prasoon and Rakeysh. Milkha got many offers in his lifetime worth crore of Indian rupees but sold movie rights to Rakeysh worth ONE-RUPEE. 

Rakeysh, in my view, has a strange, bizarre and confused picking for a major role in his movies. In Rang de Basanti, Rakeysh picked Manoj Bajpai for Daljeet’s role which never ever fitted on him, later Mr.Perfectionist Aamir Khan signed and rest was history. In ‘Delhi-6’, central role of New Yorker boy Roshan was supposed to be played by Hrithik Roshan which could somehow have been a little convincing but turned to Abhishek Bachchan, who (forget being in NYC) looked to be pretending a desi wannabe in whole movie. Mehra’s production ‘Teen Thay Bhai’…………………………… ahhh leave it. Then comes this awaiting movie, in which Rakeysh was, to more than a bizarre, gifting this role to Bollywood’s favorite khiladi Akshay Kumar. Later on, an angel of death whispered in Rakeysh’s ear and role fell to Javed Akhtar’s all-round super-talented son Farhan Akhtar.

Farhan has a habit of impressing his viewers and moviegoers anyhow since 2001. First as Director, then as singer (I know he is not that good, but is surely a good singer of his own voice) and now as an actor. He did impressed in his sister Zoya’s movie ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ but if you want to test a man to his acting skills from all criteria what a successful actor always have or must have in his CV, then you should watch him in ‘BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG’. You will realize, how impressive his acting has become.

It has been reported in various sources that to make himself perfectly fit in Milkha’s role, Farhan spent 18 months in body-toning. He ran in marathon race in 3-4 cities which also played major part in movie promotion.

The movie is remarkably flexible and convenient for all sports lovers and sportsmen to engrave yourself in a running torso. Farhan almost successfully imitates Milkha’s style of running. You need to carefully watch his leg and hand movements and match it to Milkha’s original races of Rome Olympics anywhere (perhaps Youtube). It is never easy to play a hardcore role in such intensifying biographic movie but huge round of applause to Farhan who is not a veteran of acting career to mold in a role.

When you flow with the rythm the movie goes after the first hour, you might go so deep to make your presence in Milkha’s place and understand his spirit. The moment he lose the first race to Sher Singh Rana, you certainly will feel if you lost with the agony you fell like he fell.

Rakeysh has brilliantly directed the interchanging scenes of present Milkha and his flashback. The depiction of his childhood, village and his family was brilliant but I was confound at first impression when I found versatile Divya Dutta playing role of his didi (whom I thought maa) and role of babuji went to veteran British-Pakistani television artist, Art Malik, who looked more like an octogenarian dadaji. But the fact in Divya’s role is that you can see a mother of Milkha in his didi’s eyes. Swallowing the pains of partition and patience from the beatings of her husband, it was Divya’s beauty of role which blended a specific role in Milkha’s life playing didi’s role and acting like a mother.

Transformation of Milkha’s childhood from Govindpura to Delhi, re-uniting with his surviving married sister, becoming a dacoit and soon to be a romantic vagabond was superlative. Full marks to the boy Japtej who played young Milkha and passed his acting when it came to the utmost depression and mental fatigue of partition era. He was selected in around 3000 boys in the audition.

Bollywood movie can never be without love and romance but Milkha’s life in movie was shown colorful. First entered the screen is Biro played by fashionista Sonam Kapoor who was eye-stopper in simple shalwar-qamiz, then enters Stella played by Australian TV drama ‘Blue Water High’ famed Rebecca Breed and last one was a very brief cameo of swimmer Perizaad played by another debutant, Pakistani model-turn-singer-turn-actress Meesha Shafi.

The best on-screen was unarguably Milkha-Biro one. A highly old-school romance and a tale of love affair garnished with unprecedented romance. Glimpse of love encountering with the help of a cycle and water bucket as ‘miss call’ and later on with the help of cropping a rubber ball half for sending ‘sms’. You will miss this brief love epic till the end. Seems like Sonam, since Ranjhanaa’s commercial success is taking her roles carefully. She did her homework on fitting for role of Biro which was all watched in her catwalks, smiles, voice and dialogue deliveries. In short, her body-language was excellent despite a brief role.

When you see a mother in Milkha’s sister, you will convincingly find a father-role in Milkha’s coach Gurudev Singh played by amazing actor Pavan Malhotra as well as Indian coach Ranveer Singh played by cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s father Yograj Singh. Both coaching characters were like angels to Milkha who were basically the founders of Milkha’s hidden legacy in his strength and accomplishments, specially the former one. The physical training will ease you to copy your physical exercising scheme.

Milkha Singh (left) and Farhan Akhtar (right)

The musical team of movie is so far the best one. The picturing of every song is blessing to the flow of movie. Songs are motivational, army-opathic, kangaroo-folk and romantic but all of them are self-esteeming and colossal. Musical genius A.R.Rahman was expected to compose like Rakeysh’s last two movies but director picked Shankar-Ehsan-Loy. The selection was never regretting. To the contrary, much appreciating as musical sensibilities speak the toning volume of movie scenes. Specially the agonized race of Milkha where Daler Mahendi’s ‘Gurbani’ was played is heart-boiling. For me, the best compositions were ‘Mera Yaar’ and ‘O Rangrez’.

From start till end, the movie will garnish a platform of solidarity for inspiration, motivation, self-belief and spirit of sportsmanship. The movie is a blend of two humans in one: a boy who lost his family and suffered extreme hardships of life; and a man whose will-power and power of determination made him ever-respecting in decades to follow. 

This is Farhan’s best performance of his career and will be remembered in years. Almost all characters are given a respected time in movie and all artists have done wonderful job. After Farhan, Pavan and Divya as coach and sister respectively are supporting winners for me. Rakeysh presented another Delhi-matic excellency, recognizing the legend’s success and framing it in shape of commercial Hindi-movie to a height. Milkha’s name, fame and honor will double by the movie itself. Highly recommended to all moviegoers to watch this bio-epic.

Rating: 8.6/10