Manikarnika- Kangana Run-out!

Image Source - IMDb

Happy New Year folks!

Have you been sticking to your resolutions! I have: p

After a 3 month sabbatical, Bob and I are back with our reviews. We thought we’d start out with a film review. Please follow our blog and also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We have loads of recipes, product reviews, book reviews, DIYs lined up!

Kangana Ranaut had been on quite a roll and deservedly so. I loved her roles in Queen, Tanu weds Manu Returns and Simran. I hadn’t even seen the trailers of Manikarnika and I was excited to watch this film. I like historical films provided they stick to the plot and keep the film as close to real life events and that would also mean not over-romanticising situations/events. I was also curious to see how the film would turn out knowing that Kangana was one of the Directors of the film.

I was disappointed!

PLOT: The film is based on the life of Rani Laxmi Bai.

Manikarnika is a young woman, full of spunk. Jhansi is beset not only by the British forces but also by enemies from within the walls of the palace. Sadashiv Rao, a rival prince has his eyes on the throne. A minister of Jhansi spots ‘Manu’ hunting a tiger and impressed by her courage, he chooses her to wed the King of Jhansi. Unlike her husband, ‘Manu’ refuses to be cowed into submission by the British Officers. At the same time, she wins the affection of the people of Jhansi by standing up for their rights.

Post the death of her husband and son under mysterious circumstances, Laxmi Bai succeeds as the Queen of Jhansi. Taking advantage of this situation, the British ask the  Queen to leave the palace. She finds support from the locals and gathers an army to take back the palace and defend Jhansi from the clutches of the British Empire. What follows is the battle between Jhansi led by Rani Laxmi Bai and the British troops led by Hugh Rose.

I was probably expecting too much from this film and hence came out of the hall disappointed.

Let’s not take away Kangana’s acting skills. I wouldn’t call this, one of her best works, but she was good. Other actors had negligible scenes in the film. One would have expected more screen space for actors portraying pivotal roles such as those of Sadashiv Rao (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and Jhalkari Bai(Ankita Lokhande). The senior members of the cast -Suresh Oberoi as Bajirao (in whose palace Laxmi Bai has been brought up), Danny Denzongpa as Laxmi Bai’s trusted army general, Kulbhushan Kharbanda as a minister of Jhansi too have a ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ role in the film. However minor a role, apart from the actors playing the British Officers, the rest have done a good job. The Britishers’ speech sounded forced and rehearsed unlike the ones who acted in Lagaan.

 Here is what ruined the film:

1.     I am a fan of Kanagana Ranaut and I understand she’s the protagonist of the film (well, the film IS named after her character) so don’t get me wrong when I say this – she’s made the film all about herself! I really do think that scenes of other actors have been deleted from the final cut. Am I nitpicking? If you felt the same, please do leave a comment below.

2.     It’s a historical film! Why do we need the lead to be all dolled up, sporting a different hairstyle in each scene? Wasn’t it enough that all close-ups of Kangana were airbrushed!

3.  Every visual scene needn’t be vocally explained to the audience by a loud proclamation. When we see a person lying on the floor in a pool of blood, we know he’s dead. Don’t announce it. We are not watching CID!

4.    What’s with the random song and dance sequence! And we have the Queen joining in too. Let’s keep it real, people!

5.   Enough with the tight shots and sweeping shots already! We don’t need to see Kangana and her palace from all angles.

6. The dialogues felt very 1990’s. Kangana’s dialogues in the second half when she’s proclaiming her love for her country and encouraging her subjects to follow suit, while well delivered, is not moving enough. I wasn’t left teary eyed!

7.    There’s no correlation between some of the scenes. For eg: when Jhalkari Bai’s calf is taken away by the British officers from her house (which is nowhere in the vicinity of the palace), the next scene has Laxmi Bai barging into the Officers’ mess to get the calf back.

I hear the film is doing well and receiving accolades but I wouldn’t recommend watching this in the theatres. The film would have been much better with another Director/s and scriptwriter.

Clearly, Kangana’s association with the name Krish has never gone down well.  

Look what I found on the Just Cricket, Cricket Academy grounds :) 

Andhadhun

What is life? It depends on the liver.

Image Source - IMDb

The film stars Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu and Radhika Apte. With a star cast such as this, a trailer that keeps you at your wit’s end and generous reviews being splashed about, it was no wonder I went to watch this movie with high expectations.

Ever since I’ve started reviewing movies for the blog, I’ve been watching them with a critical eye, nitpicking at flaws and delving too much into the intricacies of filmmaking and scriptwriting. I sometimes miss those good old days of having a monosyllabic opinion. If I were to do that, I’d go, “Hmm... Interesting”. That’s how I felt when I stepped out of the theatre.

Andhadhun (not to be confused with Andhadhund meaning excessive, rash) is inspired by L’Accordeur (The Piano Tuner), a French Short Film.

PLOT (Probably the briefest plot on our blog): The film is about a blind piano player whose sole aim is to make money to be able to relocate to London and play the piano there. However, he unwillingly gets entangled in a murder. What follows are his frantic attempts at trying to escape the murderers that ends up with unearthing of secrets and major plot twists.

Any more revelation of the plot and it would have spoilers!

It goes without saying that the actors have done their jobs well.

I liked Tabu the best in the movie. She’s a brilliant actress.  It’s lovely to see her don roles that befit her age and personality and not being merely typecast into a role one would “expect” her to play.

Sadly, Radhika Apte didn’t have much of a role in the movie.

Ayushmann, Manav Vij (who looks like a beefed up Aamir Khan) and Anil Dhawan were good too.

Piano music makes up for most of the background music, the tenor oscillating with the mood of the protagonist (Ayushmann Khurrana). Such a background score comprising of one instrument rather than an orchestra, often brings a sense of realism to the scene and I like it that way.  

The USP of the movie is definitely the twists in the plot. I applaud the makers of the trailer who have craftily inserted scenes that reveal only so much that would make you want to watch the film, only to be then given a jolt within the first 15 minutes.

There were some brilliant moments that made us go “aaah,we didn’t expect that”, in fact one of the scenes towards the end almost had me clapping. (Yes, I’m the kind who claps in excitement).

The movie ends in a cliffhanger and it is left to the audience to interpret it in the manner he or she chooses to. Some suspect a sequel in the making, but I doubt that but then again I have been proven wrong in the past ( Black Panther, ahem...)

This is not your typical Bollywood film. No wait, I take that back. We have seen such a massive shift from the earlier norm of boy meets girl, saves her from the villain and the audience is invited to witness their happily ever after moment. But this film moves a step ahead. It is free from undying love, untainted protagonist, item numbers (Am I allowed to use the word ‘Item’? Or is that being sexist?)...

Here come the brickbats:

There is too much of an attempt to keep the audience occupied with twists that at times it becomes a little too hotchpotch and in that process the Director/scriptwriter loses sense of the rational that has the audience questioning “As if that could happen in real life”.

I wouldn’t ask you not to watch it in the theatres. Go if you must, but remember seeing is not always believing ;)

Here’s a fun fact, I read online - Sriram Raghavan, who is the Director of this film featured a blind girl playing the piano in the song Raabta in his film Agent Vinod.