Sunday 31 August 2014

Mardaani – The opportunity to be another “Rang De Basanti”

What is it that made movies like Rang De Basanti, Sarkar, Legend of Bhagat Singh, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag the success they are? Was it Immaculate Direction? Breathtaking dialogues? Intense Background Scores? Well selected star cast? Maybe it was a combination of all those elements and much more, but we will never know for sure.


And the Mardaani team has definitely made an attempt to get there, unfortunately it does not inspire as much as needed from a movie of this potential. Don’t get me wrong, in the last couple of years, with the Khans giving out one stupid movie after another, and no one daring to do anything innovative, this movie is a definite relief and stands out as a much “much” better option, but it does not stand to the expectations it creates.

The movie starts with Shivani Shivaji Roy (Rani Mukherjee) strutting her stuff, showing that although she is a Crime Branch officer, she has the guts and the will to take up other matters too. Pulling up her sleeves, straightening her collar and shouting to get things in control, it feels as if she has to determinedly shout and demand respect instead of having a personality to get it automatically. Was there something wrong with casting? We’re really no one to comment on that. So the movie goes onto a point where they show the softer side of Shivani, with her husband (Jishu Sengupta), and her niece. The movie also shows that she has adopted another orphan girl (Priyanka Sharma) living on the streets and takes care of her education and supports her. Suddenly, this girl goes missing!! That’s the story line of the movie.
With an excellent performance from supporting crew, Tahir Raj Bhasin absolutely nails the role given. Undoubtedly the best actor in the movie! It was sad to see that Jishu Sengupta was only given a small role with the kind of acting great he has shown in the past. Priyanka Sharma has started moving in the right direction. Starting off somewhat cheezy in her debut movie “Meeting se Meeting tak” to showing that she can not only be a good MTV India VJ but can really act, this role will definitely give her a push in the right direction.

To be a bit more technical, we definitely expected a more from the “Parineeta” fame director, Pradeep Sarkar. It just seemed that his crew was executing the movie right, but just maybe the passion was missing. Weak cinematography partnered with an even weaker background score, and feeble dialogues to make sure that the scenes did not make the impact they should have. The screenplay did get better at the end, but too little too late! 
All in all, we would want the audience to watch this movie at least once, but this movie did give a flattish performance. Rani Mukherjee has tried her best, but needed more support from the technical crew. Three and half stars from us!

                                                                                                                            By Avinash Sadarangani

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