Dilwale 2016 (Movie Review)


Dir: Rohit Shetty
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon
Dur: 2 hrs 35 mins
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.5/5

The film had created a huge hype prior to its release and from the looks of the poster, I judged it to be a gang-style action hit. Instead, what the film really depicted was romance embellished with a little action just to make it a bit swanky, break up the monotony and spice up the romance. The story is pretty run-of-the-mill, at least in character, but the sceneries are picturesque and the cars, exotic.

Raj a.k.a Kali (SRK) and Meera (Kajol) are children of rival Indian  gangsters situated in far away Bulgaria. Why Bulgaria? Because it has a well-planned and developed city, it is clean and eye-catching and had the ambient suited for a typical Hollywood style car-chase. While the Bulgarians are left out of their beautiful land, the exotic cars engaged in high-speed chases, drifts, flights and collisions, are the focus. Raj and Meera’s love blossoms or at least apparently does until two separate and life-altering events occur. Both of them are the eldest and have one sibling of the same sex as themselves. Both incidentally are without mothers, ouch! They’ve grown in an environment of guns, violence, money and danger, under the solicitous eye of their beloved fathers and yet they appear averse to such a life. And when circumstances take an insidious turn they both turn away and seek refuge in secret lives. Both coincidentally choose Goa as the place to reboot their life stories. I’m a Goan but the Goa portrayed in the film was almost unrecognizable to me; only with much effort could I recognize my own parish church – Panjim. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but I realized one thing: Media has the power to transform and it can do so to people, places, things, situations, values and if I may say, even life.

Years after Raj and Meera part ways, their younger siblings accidentally meet and purposefully fall in love. Sparks fly, tensions rise and old flames are re-kindled. The romance between the siblings is a sub-plot to the main romance between Raj and Meera. The film has quite a few sub-plots that are neatly inserted and enliven the film. Johnny Lever is hilarious and so is Boman Irani, despite their side roles. Sanjay Mishra (Oscar) supplies fantastic rhymes which add flavour to the above par dialogues. The story has quite a bit of emotional content and the actors, especially the lead ones, do well to depict those emotions. The action is artificial and so are some sceneries. The acting is not all that great. Shah Rukh and Kajol sizzle and their chemistry is palpable. It’s little wonder that their pairing up created most of the hype around the film. Varun is excellent and plays his role with ease. Now the innocent boy, now the naughty boy, now the romantic, now the loyal brother and friend. He’s completely at home. Kriti is a bit raw and seems just a pretty face.

The story is alright but didn’t pan out very well. The editing needs a little more attention. The actor could have done better and I’m referring to the side ones. What I would rate highly are the dialogues which are really the soul of this film. Dilwale lacks the strong emotional gravity that would make you want to watch it again, just to re-live the experience.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

The Challenge of Mercy

Image
Pope Francis has declared this as the year of mercy, and up until now plenty of reflections have been preached and published on mercy. Perhaps each of us too have made our own reflection on the theme of mercy. Since the inauguration of the year, my mind has often reverted to this theme. Every night when I make an examination of conscience, I evaluate myself: my thoughts, words and deeds vis-à-vis mercy. I realize that I am not merciful most of the time and that I resort to do what benefits me over the merciful thing. Pope Francis realized that the Church needed to revisit the theme of mercy; to reflect upon it and put it into practice. Mercy is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus is the personified revelator of the Father’s mercy. Through his words and deeds he suffused the scent of mercy. His teachings on mercy are appreciated and continue to inspire people even today. The Church itself was founded on mercy: Christ became the expiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10; Heb 2:17). He for
Read more

Andadhun (2018) [Movie Review]

Image
Dir: Sriram Raghavan Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte and Tabu Dur: 2 hrs 18 mins Genre: Black Comedy Crime Thriller Rating: 3/10 I watched this film on good recommendations. It was hailed as one of the best films of 2018. The mystery surrounding the film went well with the mystery that was actually the film itself. I learnt a hard lesson after watching this film and that is not to go by what other’s say about a film. Given Bollywood’s film making standards, I should not have been surprised. Yet, I found myself pleasantly surprised at the end product. Andadhun tells a complex tale of blindness in a world that is not blind even though it appears so. Confused? Well then, watching the film is not going to make it any better. This film is a classical example of postmodern film-making. It is replete with ample plot twists that don’t allow you to settle into its tricky narrative. Just when you think you have it all figured out, a new twist emerges and challe
Read more