'The Real' Dangal

Dangal is all about 'The Real'. You feel the pain, emotions, courage, struggle and patriotism. Nothing is over dozed, be it father-daughter affection, hardship of a national champion or nationalism. Well toned, nicely crafted and high performance delivered. Convincing performances by all the actors in this film. Zaira Wasim is the top performer who completely sparkled the wrestlingmatches in the film with top class reality that we sometimes feel watching a live wrestling performance. Special mention goes to Suhani Bhatnagar as the young Babita, Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra as the adult Geeta and Babita. Amir Khan, 'the perfectionist' delivered mind blowing performance, one of the top three of him till the date.

Another important aspect is the approach taken by Nitish Tiwari to impress audience with a lesser known game, turning it out to be the most thrilling game by explaining the sport and its rules with intelligence and sensitive wrestling sequences. Of course, Daler Mehndi's title track gives us an adrenaline rush, equally scoring background score at right places throughout the movie.

Ultimately, this movie is not to be missed, especially for those people who are obsessed with good films.

Leela - bold, classy tale

The luxury of elaborate narration and extravagant conceptualization are those aspects which a writer always enjoys. Ironically, these aspects define the boundaries for a filmmaker which will be a difficult task while transforming a literary work into cinema. Leela has succeeded that challenge turning out to be a bold, classy & unorthodox film adaptation of an acclaimed literary work in malayalam. The opening sequence of the movie furnishes the lead character, kuttiyappan keeping the vibe until the climax scene. The directo r actor duo to be given full credit for this charm. It’s indeed a daring attempt by Renjith to sketch this short story in big screen. He has succeeded in almost every aspect of this movie, including cast & crew. Surely its a ‘Film by Renjith and crew’. Biju Menon, Vijayaraghavan, Indrans, Jagdeesh & Paravthy contributed their fullest to the performance part while Prashant Ravindran scored well with brilliant cinematography, particularly those top angle aerial shots of deep forests. Bijibal’s background music was magnificent, creating the perfect mood for the movie.

My call outs are, Vijayaraghavan with his impressive body language and gestures proves one of the finest actors in malayalam industry. Jagdeesh has his career best performance till date playing the role as Nair, must say a come back movie. Indrans, yet another example of late discovery. Parvathy as Leela with deep shadowed eyes, without having any single dialogue in the movie set a stand for her promising career. Finally Biju menon with his natural grace and impulsive dialogue delivery handled the major portion of kuttiyappan character, also succeeded in going beyond his comfort zones in intense emotional sequence.

Movie intrudes into the man’s hypocritical ethics, vulnerabilities and moral values perhaps also gives the viewers something to think and act against current social issue.

Airlift - Tale Of Largest Evacuation

Some stories are meant to be told and Airlift is one amongst them. The tale of largest evacuation in the history of world by a civil airline, Air India is gritty, classic and reasonably well textured with incredible detailing of 90's middle east. Airlift takes off with no turbulence. Ten minutes into beginning, the plot is set for the race and never lost its momentum until the last bit of the film which looks bit hurried. There is no dramatic build ups or Bollywood heroism through out the movie, kudos to director Raj Krishna Menon for perfect shaping of lead character with the shades of real life unsung heroes. The movie is backed by impressive arial shots, nice background score and also well performed by lead as well as supporting actors. Akshay Kumar has given one of his best performances on screen, calm & composed. Purab Kohli, Inaamulhaq & Prakash Belawadi are terrific with their performances. Airlift with tight plotted script, execution, cinematography and editing is a must watch movie for this patriotic season.

Past is Present : A Complicated Journey

X is an experimental film with a blend of fiction and reality. The crazy abstract narrative style is confusing at times and exciting as well, leaving a note for the audience to build up their own imaginary story. The main plot deals with the complex life of a movie director who realises the meaning of his past life with a reflection of incidents that happens during the course of one night at present. This film which is been put together by a bunch of 11 directors is not a recommended watch, however those who loves watching experimental films with a different eye can try it for once.

Stories Do Exist in Bollywood

Wazir is held together by Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar with a massive backbone support of maestro called the 'Script'. It starts off at a fast pace but slows down at the half where the story comes to handle the emotional moments. Second half opens with a thriller face eventually turning the plot to have a fair ending.

The plot is about two wounded men coming together in their lives, ultimately revealing the facts backed by the Chess game. The well written story has made this film uniquely stand apart from plotless wonders of Bollywood gimmicks. However, the making could not keep the essence of the story intact, especially when you expect something different from the director who gave us the deadly 'Shaitan' and silent slow killer 'David'. Bejoy Nambiar's portrayal of dramatic representations of realistic scenes backfired the movie with over sentiments and worthless cliches. He follows his style with slow-motion songs sequences, overtones and brilliant background score. His extra effort to explain every move and turn of the movie disconnected the viewer from the world of imagination, however performances of Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar made up the gaps thus giving the viewers something to carry away after the movie.

Wazir is not a thriller movie, but proves that stories do exist in Bollywood.