Reviews

If there is one thing I learned from Soorma is to focus on the work you are doing. Do it for the pleasure it offers in itself and not as a means to achieve something else.

When I saw the trailer for Soorma, I honestly thought that it is another Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Turns out it is like that and some more. The rags to riches story of Soorma is a set pattern. You show a few scenes of before, a turning point and then 6 months to a year of training montage and then the sportsperson performing his or her best on a stage that matters. Everyone is happy. By no means, I am disrespectful of the sportspersons, but the pattern is definitely old. Soorma is all that and some more.

Soorma, being based on a true story, is massively inspirational. It has moments that restore faith in mankind and also moments which make you question about the state of sports other than cricket. It is hard to say how it is different without giving spoilers. It reminded me of Kung Fu Panda and the way Shifu trains Po. His training is shaped through his love of food and here, Soorma's training shapes through the love of his life. Towards the end both realize that their determination is in the act itself and not in the triggers that resulted in them.

Most such movies inspire people to start playing sports or take a gym membership. Soorma felt different because I didn't feel inspired to follow his tracks. I was inspired to excel at the job I like to do, whichever that is. Most of the times we end up doing things to achieve something else. An IT engineer goes to office not to excel at the code, but to earn money. If Soorma helps us in changing that perception a little and people start focusing on the act they do more than the illusory goals, I would call the movie a success.

Coming to the other aspects of the film. The acting by Diljit Dosanjh is amazing as Sandeep, and Tapsee is very convincing as his love interest Harpreet. Industry veterans like Vijay Raaz need no validation. The playback score is engaging but all the songs fall flat. None of the songs could connect with me and they get extremely tiring. This is definitely not some work that can go on Shankar Ehsaan Loy's resume.

If you like sports movies or inspirational movies, this is definitely worth a watch.

This is the first time I have seen such a walk in the park, lazy, casual heist movie. There are three leads, all get cut off from the pension, so they decide to rob and bank, and they do. That's it.

There are some backstories but nothing much serious. I guess the three leads, acting powerhouses as they are must not even broken a sweat filing this one. It is like a quick buck for them while working on some other project. When you are Caine and Freeman, nothing really is that hard, but this was exceptionally easy. No doubt the movie tanked and that was not because of the acting. That was spot on, not much was demanded from them. The script was fairly straightforward and borderline sloppy.

Every movie has a purpose, like Fight club we saw just a few days back was a statement about consumerism and capitalism. This one has nothing of that sort. I watched it because I like those two and it was a long time since it was downloaded in my amazon prime account.

If you like Caine and Freeman, you'll get plenty of them here. Only for them, nothing else noteworthy.

I remember playing a very addictive physics based game involving flightless birds on a slingshot darting themselves at pigs. The idea was funny and addictive. I played it a lot. Then like other games, I grew bored of it and stopped playing it.

Rovio, the maker of the game franchise did not stop at that. They kept bringing a lot of games with little tweaks here and there, but never got me interested again. It was out my initial love for that game, I decided to watch this film.

The idea is simple. It is based on how the game plays out. The pigs steal the eggs and the birds get revenge. Making it a scripted animation could not introduce anything new. I was left searching for some common elements from the game. There are plenty of those but nothing that stands out as a unique movie experience.

Superhit songs are reprised, nothing new there either. The overall attempt felt average or rather tad bit below average. Recommended only if you are a die-hard fan of the original game. You can skip it otherwise.

This is Liam Neeson's Taken, made in India.

The action sequences are decent and that was the primary reason I went to see the film. Rest of the content is sub-par. The acting is barely average. Music is forgettable sans the जा कैलाश कर विनाश line that keeps repeating.

The movie needed much better editing. The length can not be justified, it's awfully slow at times.

I had always thought of Ajay Devgan as more grounded compared to Salman features. Salman is virtually a god in his films. Ajay Devgan is human in comparison. However, the climax is laughably crazy.

Overall you can give it a miss or if you must catch a morning show.

I admit that I have not seen a single movie made by Mr. Sanjay Leela Bhansali in theaters. I always brought them home to watch on PC or DVD. After Sawariya, which I have not seen at all, I never saw any movie from the guy. Yesterday I was forced to accompany my friends to see Guzarish. I admit that I was skeptical.

Mr. Bhansali is a kind of painter, art of whom I'd admire. I close my eyes and I still see the beautiful landscape he created in front of me yesterday. The colors faded in each other, to create a flowing charisma. May it be the scene where he shows the magic, may it be when they show his accident, may it be when there is a clean focus on his mother's face at the time of petition, may it be the time when he comes out of his house to go to the court; every color is there, and each one makes its presence felt. He has a knack of using such bright colors, this adds to beauty of his art. I fell for the presentation he did, the emotions he captured, so subtle, so surreal.

It's a director's job to make sure the cast acts the way he intends to present it on screen, and he has done the job splendidly. All the actors have justified the roles they are in. The whole movie has an air of melancholy. But at the same time, the movie is never a complete tearjerker. It touches you when it's sad, you'd never know how softly a tear rolled out of your eye, involuntarily. Aha, but at the same time there would be bursts of occasional laughter to keep the mood alight and flowing. Maintenance of decorum is part of actors' job description and he does it well, so well that you can not imagine any other actors of the industry performing those roles.

Having acknowledged the beautiful positivity of it, let me also say that the movie has several things which are unnecessary. It seems to have added just to make the length near 2 hours 30 minutes. This movie appears too slow at points and it does not go ahead at all. Also we could have expected an intellectual debate in the case filed for euthanasia, but that does not happen. In fact the case was the most disappointing aspect of it. Mr. Bhansali had the chance to exploit the possibility but I guess he chose not to. The songs are not so catchy to be remembered after a day or two. What I'm pointing out here are not deal breakers; just hindrances in the complete feel of the movie.

As I had said earlier on FB, I'd say this was a Beautiful Poem, verses of which seemed to have extended a little