From Omkara until Haider, I've always admired Vishal Bhardwaj's work based on his writing, direction, acting, and music. I was pretty eager for this film based on the good trailer despite the negativity it received on Youtube but the songs on the other hand made me skeptical about it. But after watching this, I felt that that something went wrong in terms of storytelling and visuals in some way.
So this movie focuses on an actress named Julia who dates a Parsi filmmaker and millionaire Rustom Billimoria who is already married but tries to hide this relationship from his wife. But due to some circumstances, Julia falls in love with an Indian soldier named Nawab Malik who is currently fighting at the Burmese Border along with the British and Japanese army. The love triangle between the actress, soldier, and the filmmaker is basically what this movie is about.
Quite frankly, this film is a bore to many extents. The way the movie started was good and unapologetic making me realize that this film is going somewhere but post interval becomes too far-fest and uneven creepiness starts to crawl in especially with a generic ending which didn't do any justice to the movie.
War genre-based films follow a certain pattern by its set design, costumes, weaponry,and VFX. The film managed to tackle some of these elements but the VFX wasn't crisp enough. Vishal's previous film Haider had all these elements. I believe he should continue making Shakespeare play based films because of the amount of success he retained from these films.
The music was below average especially taking 75% of the film for these songs. What I mean generally is that there were more than 10 songs in that movie and that is how it took so much time of the movie. The lyrics were written like some 5 year old was singing a lullaby. Even with VB composing, he also lost the touch in music.
Despite the criticism, there are some saving grace moments in this film.
The acting was amazing. Shahid Kapoor gives a flawless performance and he started really well in this film. Just stay away from R.Rajkumar and Shandaar's zone please. Even surprisingly, Saif Ali Khan was also good in his part. Kanagana Ranaut's mentality from Queen raised her performance in this movie a notch from the top. But the British Dude was so irritating in this film especially the way he spoke Hindi.
The cinematography and direction was nice especially the way the film was shot. Every frame was executed beautifully and the war scenes were also shot good but like I said, the VFX and editing needed more work.
Overall, this movie is undoubtedly one of the most disappointing films of 2017 and yeah based on the good performances, I would rate it a one-time watch but in my opinion, this VB film is worth watching on a T.V broadcast or on a Netflix.
Vishal Bhardwaj, I would bid this masterpiece for a dollar but not more than that.
2/5
