[This post comprises only those Hindi movies that I have watched, and in no way is an all-inclusive list. Also it is my first attempt reviewing and I just set out to do it, didn’t realise I had watched these many xD I am thinking of doing it on a regular basis from 2017 that way one post will not have so much load to bear!]
‘Wazir’: was released on 14th January 2016 and is directed by Bejoy Nambiar. A crime thriller starring - Amitabh Bachchan (Pandit Omkar Nath Dhar), Farhan Akhtar (Daanish Ali), and Aditi Rao Hydari (Ruhana Ali). It also had Neil Nitin Mukesh (Wazir) and John Abraham (SP) as guest appearances. The character Wazir had a stronghold in the second half of the movie and the plot twist was totally unexpected. The movie had good dialogues and the monologue towards the end given in a tape by Omkar provides all the needed information, to both Daanish and the viewers. The title ‘Wazir’ is given significance by the monologue and stands justified in the end. A game of chessboard becomes the ultimate prop for both vengence and justice being delivered.
‘Fan’: released on 15th April 2016, directed by Maneesh Sharma is a thriller. The movie clearly didn’t have a happy ending. It dealt with the frailty of human emotion, and portrayed its subjectivity. We often admire and idolise an ideal person in life, in this case Gaurav’s obsessive love and admiration for Aryan Khanna the superstar. The movie showed us an obsession of the exaggerated and injurious kind. The fan turns fanatic! We still feel sympathy for the antagonist as he was a simple person, but a wrong act in a wrong time turned his admiration into bitterness and he went on to defame his once favourite star, who he is a look-alike of. Both the characters are well played by Shah Rukh Khan, Gaurav and Aryan are only similar by the looks, their personalities are strikingly different. Aryan though out of no malice, is inconsiderate to his fan. His distant behaviour is essential for the plot to move to its climax. The story is not totally outrageous and the emotion is relatable in the Indian context where celebrities are generally idolised by so many. The visual effects undertaken to give Shah Rukh a younger look for his role as Gaurav; and his playing an antagonist after so long (which he does so brilliantly that he creeps you out) were two highlights of the movie.
‘Sultan’: A romantic sports drama directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, released on 6th July 2016, stars Salman Khan as Sultan Ali Khan and Anushka Sharma as Aarfa Ali Khan as leads. The movie deals with the hardships of Aarfa - a dedicated wrestler who gives it up when she becomes pregnant. She is grief stricken when she loses her child at a time when Sultan is head over heels about his victories. (Though she resumes wrestling later on in the movie). It also shows Sultan’s arrogance due to his victories and is brought back to the ground - only after the loss of their first child who had a rare negative blood type (matched only to Sultan in their area who was unavailable at the time); and after Aarfa who rightly blames him for the loss, distances herself from him. The movie is about wrestling at large which is humanised by the interaction between Suntan and Aarfa and their life events – his initial pursuing of her, their marriage, his disillusionment and her estrangement, and their final reconciliation.
‘Rustom’: A crime thriller directed by Tinu Suresh Desai was released 12th August 2016. It starred Akshay Kumar as Commander Rustom Pavri and Ileana D’Cruz as Cynthia Pavri his wife. Arjan Bajwa (Vikram Makjiha) played the antagonist along with Esha Gupta (Preeti Makhija) who played his sister. Based on the real life incident of Naval officer K.M. Nanavati and businessman Prem Ahuja. It was a mixture of corruption, disruption of the familial and an elaborate conspiracy in the office and higher up. The plot twist in the movie was a pleasant surprise, nowhere did the movie lose its momentum nor did it make for a boring watch. The movie ended with victory for patriotism and righteousness!
‘PINK’: courtroom drama, released on 16th September 2016, is directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. It has four main characters: Meenal Arora (Taapsee Pannu), Falak Ali (Kirti Kulhari), Andrea Tariang (as herself) and Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan). All four of them deliver powerful performances and have their fair share of dialogues that accentuate the main theme of the movie. The highlight of the movie is it doesn’t state something extraordinary, it deals with the same issue of women’s dignity and their right to fair treatment and respectful existence in our society. It portrays the plight of Indian women and their hardships when they lead ‘unmarried’ and ‘independent’ lives. But the presentation is so powerful and vivid that it catches our attention till the end. The movie has its share of grotesque scenes (even though it is not explicitly shown, it can be felt) leaves one mortified, especially so if you are a woman yourself, how easy it is for you to slide into one of those girls’ shoes and know exactly what they are going through! The fact that the incident is not a fantastical one and can happen to any woman on a given day is what makes it relatable and incredulous at the same time. The end game is the final monologue of Deepak Sehgal that no means no, it requires no further explanation, no matter who (or what relation the woman has with you) says it. It is definitely a must-watch, not fixed for this year alone!
‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’: Karan Johar in an interview with Anupama Chopra says the movie is about the difficulty faced when dealing with breakups after a certain age and point in life. The movie is just that! A sad-soppy tale starring Ranbir Kapoor as Ayan Senger, Anushka Sharma as Alizeh Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Saba. Fawad Khan as DJ Ali, Shah Rukh Khan as Saba’s ex-husband Tahir Taliyar are special appearances along with Alia Bhatt and Neha Dhupia, while Imran Abbas and Lisa Haydon are guest appearances. Thus the movie has a score of popular faces! No character in the movie achieves a love fulfilment, everyone possesses love at some point of time for a limited period. But in the end it is fleeting, and leaves them all alone, on their own to deal with their miseries and memories. Though love alludes them all, the most pathetic and love deprived character is Ayan Senger because of his inability to be content with what he has and his want for more! Throughout the movie, Ayan and Alizeh are engaged in a battle of love and friendship, where love loses tremendously. Cancer becomes the ultimate weapon that dealt the last lethal blow to love! The disease is not unanticipated, on the contrary, at the time it is introduced it is quiet expected. Most of the events right before Alizeh tells Ayan about her disease prepare the course for the disclosure to the audience (the same however cannot be said about Ayan who is always alluding to a distant future and is never at the present moment with her!) The most prominent giveaway is the fact that Alizeh has her hair covered, which is quite out of the context only because the place where she meets Ayan is one of her usual spots and she has never been there before with a cap/headgear! (Nor is it her style to cover her head.) And before that we see that she suddenly leaves her love interest DJ Ali even though being with him has always been her dream. (He, however, thinks she leaves him for Ayan and we can see that in the brief interaction between the guys.) The romantic film directed by Karan Johar was released 28th October 2016.
‘Force 2’: released on 18th November 2016, an action thriller sequel to Force (2011) is directed by Abhinay Deo. The movie stars John Abraham (ACP Yashvardhan) and Sonakshi Sinha (Kamaljit Kaur) as leads and Tahir Raj Bhasin (Shiv Sharma/Rudra Pratap Singh) as the antagonist. The movie addresses the hardships faced by the spies of (in this case) ‘RAW’. However, the plot fails to show anything in an interesting light. John Abraham has nothing more to offer than he did in Rocky Handsome, the same no-nonsense, tough-macho guy seems to be placed in a somewhat different context. ACP Yashvardhan’s is too intelligent and cautious to go wrong unlike Kamaljit! Sonakshi’s character is a disappointment, she is reduced to a mockery of someone who seems to know what she is doing but is proven wrong time and again. The female character isn’t even a preferable supporting character. Rudra is a layered character and more preferable as he has his reasons and an agenda to be so careful and organized, even in his evil ways. Even in the end, it is Yashvardhan who decides how justice must be meted out, he is over-glorified throughout the movie.
‘Dear Zindagi:’ A coming of age film released 23rd November 2016 is directed by Gauri Shinde. It features Alia Bhatt (as Kaira) and Shah Rukh Khan (as Dr. Jehangir). It is relatable on two levels: both as a product of modern urbanities and as a woman. The movie is basically about enjoying the little things in life, and how to be living in the present alone – not a prisoner of the past nor a slave for the future! (“Don’t let the past blackmail your present to ruin a beautiful future.”) Some of the life hacks in the movie can be applied by anyone from the audience when they feel low on any given day. The movie is like a friend when you have had a rainy day, it is like an instant mood cheer-up mechanism. It also deals with parenting and how at times due to circumstances parents too can become a disappointment to their children. (This is a parallel take on how Kaira is a disappointment to her parents because she flunked in class as a kid.) The movie also deals with abandonment and commitment issues and the general pessimistic outlook on various issue (psychiatrist as a profession, therapy, etc being some of them). The movie has a unique sensibility, unseen in any of the movies of the year, perhaps due to its female influence and perspective. It also employs feminism in dialogues in a non-tiring way which doesn’t put you off. It definitely works more at a sense of living that is mentally liberating and soul enriching. A film about therapy that is therapeutic in itself! The highlight is that the movie is not about one large issue at hand; it is a collection of minuscule issues that can either make or break life, like life itself.
‘Kahaani 2’: The sequel of Kahaani (9 March 2012) directed by Sujoy Ghosh and released on 2nd December 2016 is a thriller featuring Vidya Balan (Vidya Sinha/Durga Rani Singh) and Arjun Rampal (Sub-inspector Inderjeet Singh) as leads. The second instalment in the franchise, given the fact that it had already employed the element of surprise in the previous movie, the seemingly tragic ending in this one wasn’t as convincing. As an audience the turn of events for the better was quite expected and that’s what happened in the end. That apart, the core of the story was dealt with able minds and cast. The grave issue of child abuse at a mould-able or impressionable or vulnerable age is beautifully portrayed. Durga Rani Singh herself a victim of child abuse is so fragile herself as an adult, always conscious and perhaps that is why she could see Minni’s pain when no one else could. The once-a-victim successfully rescues another at the stake of her own life! Though the happy ending was expected, the way in which things unfolded wasn’t predictable. When we see how things took place for the better through reminiscence of sub-inspector Inderjeet, we are left smiling. Another feature of the movie is its use of lighting – initially it is dark and gloomy and towards the end we see both Durga and her daughter in bright sunlight – to highlight the (much deserved happy ending,) new-found freedom for the victim of child abuse, her second chance for a good life with a non-biological mother who genuinely loves and respects her!
‘Dangal’: A biographical sports film directed by Nitesh Tiwari was released on 23rd December 2016. It is based on the story of Mahavir Singh Phogat and his two daughters Geeta and Babita, the roles played by Aamir Khan, Fatima Sana Shaikh (Zaira Wasim for the younger role) and Sanya Malhotra (Suhani Bhatnagar for the younger role) respectively. The story is inspiring because it is a true story based at a time when wrestling was seen as a men’s sport. It is told in a fresh tone, we do not have the usual hate for the birth of a girl child, the father says to his wife, it is not that I do not love these girls, it is just that a girl cannot fulfil my dreams. He is appreciative of his girls even when he wishes the next child born to be a boy! The movie mocks openly but subtly the ridiculous superstitions professed and practiced to attain a boy child in rural India; which once again manifests on-screen in an Amir Khan movie. The humour of the girls, their cousin or the father himself at many moments is pure and evokes genuine laughter. The society at large is mocked at for mocking on issues it doesn’t understand or cannot relate with. Geeta is the character who helps the film attain a graphical representation, when she learns to wrestle the graph starts flat at the bottom which advances to higher altitudes as she progresses as a wrestler. When she wins the nationals the graph is at its peak and so is her individual success as a human being, she is at her brim. Arrogance and ego creep into her and her downfall begins, which sets things in order for the downward progress of the graph. Her defeats and her reconciliation with her father helps humanise her character as well as balance the falling graph. The movie ends with a happy ending. It is an inspiring tale relatable at every level, they are ordinary people with big dream that come true through hardships and hardwork. Had it not been for the father daring to dream of his daughters winning gold for India, the girls would not have been able to achieve it in the first place. Nor could they have done it without the support of his wife/their mother and his brother/their cousins. The victory was a family effort, even with all their doubts, scepticism and initial anxieties. The monologue of the friend of the girls who gets married away at a tender age acts dually, as the crucial factor in the story that brings the girls on board for their father’s dream and as an eye opener for the people to yet another social evil practiced in society. The movie altogether helps in showing that girls too are worthy of being loved and raised, that they are not a burden for parents. And that all it requires is proper care, equal opportunity and training for girls to be able to achieve something in life. It is an important movie for women empowerment within the Indian context that shows the Indian scenario and how it can be made better. The movie can perhaps help promote the girl cause in India.
Based on these movies and even otherwise as a whole, this has been a year of ‘thrillers’. We got to watch many variations of the genre too! Hope everyone had a good time at the movies this year, I know I did. My top 3 films have been:
1. PINK 2. Dear Zindagi 3. Dangal
