Bhaag Milkha Bhaag: Changing the Course of Indian Cinema

So here we are. I don’t review Bollywood movies a lot. Actually this might be the first one that I am sincerely doing and so you can say that they have made it big this time. Yes, we are talking about the much babbled about, much tweeted about and much updated about, “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” the biopic of a legendary runner who was crowned the ‘Flying Sikh’. Now I won’t get into the particulars of the real life story on this one. We will keep it a ‘movie’ review, stick to the purpose. As of where the motivation to watch it comes from, it was an early morning call and I hadn't even taken a shower when someone just randomly asked me to go for it and then here we are.

Biopics have always been an important part of the cinema. Every cinema. Be it any language, biopics help us look into the past from the perspective of the movie maker and the facts about the life of the person in scope. They not only serve the purpose of cultural preservation, they also provide us with the opportunity to make an alternative take upon what had happened. Alternative journalism is picking up a lot these days and is certainly remotely linked to alternate perspective biography making. So let’s get down to it. The movie that a lot of people have been waiting for.

The Intro

You can expect this one. A race. (Meh!) As the title tells us, it is a movie about a runner and so it makes perfect sense to start it with a race and more so with a race that our protagonist does not win. The beginning has the required impact. The force of the scenes is impounding to the senses and you do get indulged into the process. In fashion of a recent trending dialogue, “You had my curiosity but now you have my attention.” Talking of what happens next would be a spoiler and so it would be enough to end this one on that it is fairly intriguing. There are following sequences of the runner entering into the army and making a living of pride. From the first half an hour of this monstrously huge movie, you realize that it is constantly going to shuffle between the very far past, the far past, the past and the present. Yes, there are literally flashbacks in flashbacks. It’s like a whole different level of “flashbackception”. Jokes apart, that innovative style keeps you hugging your seat for long enough.

Experimentation, straight to the point and interpretive cinema, the movie easily snatches an 8 on 10 for this section.

The Plot

Well now. There is nothing new in this plot. You know that it is going to be about a guy who is going to run the f**k out of every track on planet. But yes, that doesn't really stop the whole bandwagon from keeping you entertained. There are beautiful pieces of humor and emotion along with tragedy and thought assimilation that bring a lot of new perspectives to the table. That is what I was talking about in the previous review as well. To have a very simple and predictable plot allows the screenplay writer to experiment and mingle with the rest of the intricacies of the movie. You have a lot going on in terms of the aspirations of the runner, they are more defined by the story than by the character of the protagonist. The order and system of scenes and therefore the overall plot has a lot to do with the pleasant experience (as opposed to its simplicity). It will give you a lot of emotional twists and turns but not many that you just weren't expecting. The depictions of the times he spent on the rehab camps and his earlier days growing up in the village and falling in love put a stereotypical Bollywood tag to the whole process. Not saying that it never really happened, but then you just happen to roll your eyes on the seat and think, there had to be one right?

For this brave endeavor and the zeal in the plot to carry on with the ability to get you to think about it. The plot is not that bad a job at all. Fetches a 7 on 10.

The Characters

A lot of people are going to jump on me for this one, but then that’s how I feel about it. Farhan Akhtar has not played such a great role here. The expressions are stone like. Whenever he smiles it feels as if someone has given him a tonic. The reason that even after a fallacious role play he gets so much of applause is, as I told you above, the story. The process of him rising above everyone is what makes you love the character. The sheer charm of the victory takes your heart away, the adrenalin that the race pumps is all that has you going. As for the rest of the characters, the general commanding the small group of soldiers in the beginning does a great job in entertaining the audience along with the coach and almost everyone else who has been roped into the process. There is richness in character because there is diversity in place. Any less diversity would have made it downright boring. For the simple yet splendid interplay of people and the taught story line with so much going on, I give it a whopping 8 on 10 for this section only because more than depth in character they have dwelled into the expanse and thought laterally, something that helped in a movie like ‘The Green Mile’ as well which was more about an amazing story than about an amazing Tom Hanks.

For everything new, for facing the odds of thinking so much and so making everyone work together and in the tandem of the flow and tone of the movie, I give it a 7.5 on 10 for the characters.

The Screenplay

Fabulous. Sweeps all grounds. Haven’t seen an Indian flick with a better one. Go just to see how shifting from one time frame to the other can be made so enticing and elegant. They have left no space of jarring scene transitions and the whole scope of the writers’ pen fits very aptly into the brains of the audience. Especially when the people of our viewership have the attention span of a nail and a hammer. Things cannot get better for a director when he has such a powerful screenplay in hand with such a diverse character pool. But then in the process of doing everything nice, they face those typical movie sins. Oh god there are so many! They show the partition time (1947-not that you don’t know, just mentioned it for the math) where Milkha seems to be somewhere around 13-14 years old at the max. And then the first Olympic that they show he won is said to take place somewhere in 1953-54 if I am not wrong. This gives us a 6 year span between the two instances where young Milkha goes from becoming a skinny Punjabi kid to a fully grown bearded/braided man in the army who is already winning medals and respect. I is just a little jarring. But even when I get over that analogy, the place where he goes to drop Sonakshi every day after fetching water is apparently an 8-10 line broad gauge railway track. Hold on a moment. Wasn't it supposed to 1950? Where the hell did they get so many lines from and that too in a remote locality? Never mind. Let’s get over that as well. But then the movie is full of such stuff. You can see Farhan driving a 2012 model of Bullet back in 1956. That too in Pakistan where he does not have a valid drivers’ license and not to mention the fact that he found someone to give him that bike in the first place.

Long story short, the sequence of events a beautifully arranged but sometimes those glitches take away the charm. 8 on 10 (one less than what I wanted to) simply because if they had so much of thinking, a little more wouldn’t have hurt.

The Feels

It feels great. Watching it that way. Seeing him overcome his obsessions and controversies, moving on, pushing forward and keeping the spirit high, really makes you feel great. And then the realization dawns on you that it is indeed a true story. Some of it might be recreation-oriented for cinematic purposes but then essentially at the core of it, all that really happened. The movie is densely gratifying and motivating. It has put a new front to the Indian cinema and more such shall follow from talents hidden from the camera as of now.

Farhan has done a great job in setting up a stage as well as setting up a standard. I give him 9 on 10 for this path breaking endeavor. Averaging all the sections, we get to an overall ~~ 8 on 10. A must watch, take as many people along because this one is super fun in company.

some old stuff while i was clearing my hard drive

and now do i find time to write once again
in the midst of my examination does this wild thought of going through the odd bearings of my mind does summon my fingers on this not so friendly keyboard of mine
and well
to be honest
i wont be talking anorexic crap today
i have somehow been trying to grow out of it into an intelligence that can use words with four or more syllables with sense
and that in fact, trust me, is not an easy task
had it been i would have applied to write the script for the next season of "the big bang theory"
yet, here is am, suffocated by a string theory of my own
yes, my personal and as you might me expecting a complete jeopardy of the original, "the string theory"
yes, it sounds nerdy, yes i realize you no longer feel like reading this
but come on, give it a shot,after all, that's the case with more than half of the blogs you subscribe to
at least in the want of interest you might just read the whole thing
so yes, the theory that proposes the whole world can be divided into strings and that yes, all of us are connected
most certainly, a very self obsessed phenomena
...

Despicable Me 2: You Barely Expected Something Like This

There is always an incentive to not growing up. And of course there are its own drawbacks of being despised by the society for being inconvenient to them by differing from their ways. Overall, there is always a need for ways in which one can escape the mundane. The brains today have gone so stale to routine instructions, that to strike a chord, satire is one of the very few resorts left. 

This then explains why animated movies play such a huge role in the movie industry. Not only is it pleasing to the eye and a much creative arena, animated movies provide the audience with a portal to escape. I know that this is a very common thing to state but then let us appreciate the fact that a huge audience of these movies is people in their 20s’. Not going much into demographics and mass psychology. Let’s get down to the adorable deal.

The Intro

This is something you usually expect to be awesome. It is necessary after all to build a gripping premise for a movie to come. But boy can an intro get any better. They knew people are there for the minions and they threw those little yellow devils of cuteness on the screen right in the first frame where the logo of “Illumination Entertainment” (the production house) comes in. My friend and I were there together and from that very frame, we lost it and the next time I took a breath was when I got up for popcorn. This is just to say that intros to a movie do not get any better these days. As expected from the continuation of the last movie, our protagonist Gru has been shown to have given up all the evil work and has settled with the three girls (Agnes, Lucy and Margo) living a peaceful life using his previous resources to engage in an enterprise of bakery. Blah blah blah.
Bottom line: Adorable setup for a yet to come amazing story.

I give it a 9 on 10 for showing something really great, though clichéd yet synthetically appeasing to the eye.

The Plot

If you’d ask me how the plot is, I won’t have much to say. The usual part where the villain is going haywire and secret services called for an ex con-man to settle the deal and the con refuses cause he now has a happy family but the services just won’t let go cause they are the typical arses we know them to be. And then there is the attractive and yet quirky female secret agent/partner who will end up falling in love with the protagonist. Really. It’s all as predictable as the hand of the government in a scam these days. Don’t go to watch a great plot line. If Nolan has been your deal across the days and if the mundane cuteness does not attract you. Stay away!

For the awh! So predictable scenes and the overused stereotype in movies I give it a 6 on 10 for the plot.

The Characters

A total stellar in this section. The movie has everything it takes to make a character rich. Everything that you want to form a sketch for a cartoon. The ethical inclinations of each person in the movie can well be extrapolated by the viewer into any circumstance that they can think of which really pays off for keeping the cinematic part of the movie uplifted especially after the predictable plot upset. And while we are talking about the characters, the minions steal the show every time they show even half of their body on screen. The makes have done a great job with them. Each and every move, expression and unique perspective is put into play. All that you can possible do is laugh off the edge of your seat as bubbles of sugar and love burst in your tummy with rainbows above your head. There is always this doubt as to why would a super villain invent such adorable and cute looking helpers. But trust me. When they aren’t on screen, you’ll literally miss them.
To add to their richness and diversity, Agnes’s character has been portrayed beautifully. The girl is an absolute angle, again as the stereotype of the youngest of the lot goes and yet, her dialogues set her apart from any other toddler seen on screen.
Gru still maintains the panache of a villain within a changed man. His class sustains, although they have shown his frustration to be a bit too not like him at one point, you can grant them that much.
As for the rest of them people, their work is only made easy.

For this amazing development, this one takes a 9 on 10 for characters.

The Screenplay

Again, a weak plotline does not leave much room for a screenplay to evolve within a predictable sequence. But then again, as there are upsets, there are bigger surprises. The best thing that this movie does is filling in the gaps. While you do not have to bother about thinking where the story is going, your mind has a lot of room left for analyzing the current scenes and that is where all the magic is happening. And quite so, that is why this movie is the one that just cannot have spoilers. Everything good about it is between the story lines. It is only when you go to the movie and let it engulf you, will you enjoy the comforts of comedy. So on this most rare of occasions, we have a movie that has fared badly on a plotline but amazing in screenplay comparatively.

I give it a 7.5 on 10 for all that it pushed for.

The Special Effects

Technology, Art and not to forget the expertise of the Artists who make these movies has grown way too much for us to say anything about the special effects. The CGI looks spectacularly well blend. The theme is maintained constant across various designs of shots in the movie and we do see reasonable amount of detail though not as much as one would expect from a great animation. But then the point is to keep you focused on the main deal and not let you squander off anywhere.

For the very integrity of design, story and the fabric of the animation I give it a 8.5 on 10 for this.

The Feels

This is where we sum it all up. I have never seen a movie so rich in content of humor. It lets you loose ends and forget worries while you laugh your rear end off in a plethora of humor. My 130 bucks worth of tickets could not have been more worthwhile for an animated movie. Everything just seemed to fall in place. They have taken the daily life and successfully transformed it into a visual stellar. Seldom do you find movies like these. 

For making me happy after a long time, for keeping the head held high for animated movies and for helping people realize how important it is to never grow up, I rate the movie an overall (averaging scores in each section) 8 on 10.

That makes it move into our category of must watch before dying type of movies.