Aiyaary

While the director Pandey tried to build on the suspense, he fails to keep the viewer's attention because of it's run time and clumsy writing. The movie talks about arms and ammunition scam for about one and a half hour, but ends with a focus on Aadarsh society Scam. The movie could have been salvaged by tighter editing but Praveen Kathikuloth fails to deliver on that front. On the whole, AIYAARY misses the mark and is a huge letdown on the account of its flawed script and the lengthy runtime. At the box office, it will be a disappointing fare.

If you are a fan of spy thrillers and Neeraj Pandey, you will have to stifle yawns while watching Aiyaary. However, if you appreciate the finer things in life like Manoj Bajpayee's flawless performance, you must book your tickets to the film because the actor is at the top of his game here.

but if you are going in with expectations that it will be another A Wednesday, Special 26 or Baby, be prepared: this film falls short with a half-baked story-line and weak characters.The one thing I look forward to while watching a Neeraj Pandey film is thrill. However, this one left me sitting at the edge of my seat restlessly waiting to gasp. A classic example of a well-intentioned film that isn't well executed! Watch this one only for honest performances and Sidharth Malhotra's jaw-dropping good looks.

Bollywood churns out ample films but this one is worth a watch. Keeping aside how it will fare at the Box-Office, Pad Man has definitely gets us thinking about the plight of women who cannot afford sanitary napkins. In villages, thousands of women contact deadly diseases during menstruation but are unable to afford and unaware of the benefits of using pads. This film must be appreciated. Therefore you all go and watch it.

Neeraj Pandey's 'Aiyaary' is a confused film filled with a number of inter wining with each other. It is an espionage thriller set against the backdrop of Indian Armed Forces although it totally lacks his natural flair.

The film-maker starts the movie in his typical style full of twisted elements. However lack of time-frame and inconsistent narratives hampers the progress very early. The length of the movie also doesn't help the cause. The first half builds promisingly and by the end of it most of the movie unravels.

It starts off with Major Jai Bakshi(Siddharth Malhotra), an covert intelligence team-member gone rogue. He learns about the corruption among the higher authorities of the organisation while performing a surveillance role. At the same time he also holds a number of dark secrets that could set a chain of unwanted events.When Colonel Abhay Singh(Manoj Bajpayee), a highly trained military officer learns of his disappearance, he decides to take the matter in his own hands. Helping Jai is all this hara-kiri is his freelancing hacking expert girlfriend Sonia(Rakul Preet Singh).

The second half is all about the cat-and-mouse chase among the two protagonists trying to outsmart each other at every move. The climax has nothing extraordinary but the movie falls flat way before its end. The pace of the movie is up-and-down throughout. There are too many extra characters with unexplained motives. The director tries to trust the audience during many aspects of the movie which is a valiant attempt but the loopholes in the script doesn't allow him to do that.

Pandey again employs his chosen actors with some new faces. Manoj Bajpayee is in his usual brilliant form. Siddharth Mehrotra again fails to impress keeping more or less the same impression throughout the film. There are a few cameos from Anupam Kher, Naseeruddin Shah, Adil Hussain, Kumud Mishra but they doesn't inspire much confidence.

'Aiyaary' is an ambitious effort but consists of many rookie mistakes and hence is not able to punch above its weight. Although lesser run time and fewer characters could have improved the story.

#Aiyaary means changing ones appearance with the help of magic. So both the lead actors, bajpayee n malhotra, appear in different looks in the film. While bajpayee is in splendid form, malhotra looks dashing. Both play indian army guys who r out to expose the bad guys, but have different ideologies. Kashmir is described as a flourishing industry which benefits many people. The adarsh housing society scam is also mentioned at the end, but it doesnt create the desired effect. Actors rakul, anupam n naseeruddin r wasted. Rating 2/5.

This film is another showpiece from Neeraj Pandey, who brought masterpieces like A Wednesday, Special 26, and Baby, which all met with positive responses, and critical acclaim. Aiyaary is not an complete action film at all, but rather a suspenseful espionage thriller, and a damn good one at that too (for those who can appreciate).

STORY: A colonel, Abhay Singh and his protégé, Major Jai Bakshi have a lasting relationship in the Indian Army and another unit. During surveillance when Jai, however, discovers the real inside to the country's system, he goes astray, carrying a secret which could bring down the government. Abhay only has a limited amount of time to catch the rogue agent and bring him back, before it's too late...

DIRECTION/WRITING: The writing overall is ok, but at times is very clumsy. The story is good, but the writing does spoil it a bit. The film starts off quite slow with the usual Neeraj trademark - a scattered storyline, and usually with his other films everything comes to light very quickly. However with this film it takes longer than normal to make sense of what's happening, and eats up half of the first half of the film. Astonishingly it takes even longer than that to establish some of the small but important characters. Pandey takes the best of the writing and creates a gripping thriller and a rather interesting cat and mouse chase. The film keeps you gripped in your seats, and some scenes are perfectly executed for this. But Neeraj couldn't save a few clumsily written scenes, with which the film can then test your patience to some extent. A few people might find themselves completely bewildered by the whole story and incomplete arcs, and maybe give bad word-of-mouth, but the majority will be content with the running and those who can appreciate will be ones most enjoying this film.

CAST: Siddarth Malhotra is a complete natural for his role and I could not think of any other actor who could act Jai Bakshi better. Manoj Bajpayee puts the most effort into his role, and makes it look effortless. He aces this role with ease, and looks great while doing it. Rakul Preet Singh is ok but wasn't really necessary for this film. Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah have minimal roles but act them very well. The casting is quite good and this film could be seen just for everyone's performances alone.

EDITING: Editing is one of this film's biggest cons. The film just has not been edited well at all. The film's length at 157 minutes could have been trimmed down a lot, especially around the start region. The film, however, is very gripping, and it goes by quickly, which is good for this.

MUSIC: There are only three songs to the album, but only one is put into the film, Lae Dooba, which is sung well by Sunidhi Chauhan. Yaad Hai and Shuru Kar fail to impress, and they picked the best out of the lot for the film. The songs do not interrupt the flowing narrative, which lets the movie go on and keeps the grip.

DIALOGUES: There are not many, but some clap-worthy dialogues worth listening to in the film.

Despite its let-downs, Aiyaary is the designated espionage thriller for Bollywood full of suspense and some action, which keeps the audience in their seat for more. Neeraj Pandey has done a great job to overcome its flaws. The film is definitely not one of the best of Neeraj's, but it is one to watch. There might be some incompleted parts, but like said earlier, "It's for the people who can appreciate."

The 2 stars are for Manoj Bajpai. The rest ham it up. Can't blame them. Excuse me, but what was the plot all about? Army housing scam in Mumbai.. a so called witness holed up in Paharganj, Delhi. So to expose the scam, he could have been made to blurt everything out in front of the TV cameras? So from where did Czech arms come in, as also an arms dealer from London, an elite assassin commando Unit of the Indian army (with a James Bond license to kill), a member of the Unit who goes rogue.. what was all this? And was Nasiruddin's blabber so vital that the scam fell through?

What a waste of time and what a waste of good actors, especially Manoj, Siddharth, Anupam Kher and Nasiruddin. Could not understand the London connection at all ... also could not understand why Siddharth was hobnobbing with the British MI6. The latter were pretty tame... LOL. Few of them got shot in the head.. there was no follow-up action. Jesuz!!

View this film at your own risk. It is a porridge of confused ideas.