Movie - Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
*ing - Farhan Akhtar, Yograj Singh, Pawan Malhotra, Divya Dutta and others
Director - Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Language - Hindi with sprinkling of Punjabi
Genre - Sports, Biopic
Bollywood is making biopics - Good
Bollywood is making sports film - Better
Bollywood is making biopics on sportspersons - Great
Basic Premise
Story of India's greatest male athelete, Milkha Singh.
Notes
The Highs
- Farhan Akhtar - the actor. Also good performances by Japtej Singh as the young Milkha and Divya Dutta.
- Music - Zinda is going to be the new training background song.
- The army drill scenes.
- The little bits of trivia thrown in - e.g. Ayub Khan giving Milkha Singh the nickname of Flying Sikh, the mug of milk being the chief motivation for Milkha to run.
The Not So Highs
- The romantic tracks. Mostly unnecessary and could have been easily edited out and made the film shorter by half an hour.
- The lack of perfect ending. A missed Olympic medal is not a great story finisher. So the makers turned it into a tale of Milkha conquering his own personal demons.
Random Notes
- Some shades of Paan Singh Tomar also in the movie. After all both were national champion atheletes from the army background. But post-athletics career took different turns.One turned into a dacoit, other into a living legend. Interestingly, both were teammates in the 1962 Jakarta Asiad.
- Hunger is the biggest motivation to run. Certified in both Paan Singh Tomar & Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
- If we believe the film, Ms Stella cost us an Olympic medal?
- Divya Dutta & Vidya Balan - Two very good actors who can easily pass off for each other.
- As a nation, we have been so starved of Olympic glory that we have our near-misses (Milkha Singh, PT Usha) are more celebrated than some of our recent medal winners.
Rating
9/10 - A well made and acted movie with great music. But could have been a little more ruthless in editing.
Closing Note - Bollywood is making biopic on sports and actually doing a good job of it.
Closing Note - Bollywood is making biopic on sports and actually doing a good job of it.
Previously on MovieNotes - Man of Steel
4 comments:
A sad ending (i.e. movie ending at olympics itself) could have been equally effective, though a little difficult to handle from director's perspective... Not every sports movie has to end at victory, after all :)
I agree on half-an-hour editing part with you, but not on "Zinda"... It's rather title song that stays with you even after exiting the theatre, and would sound more motivational as the training song!
@Peyush - The title track would only inspire people named Milkha to run though :)
No.Milkha word ko silent kar ke bhaag!! :).And movie ending at Rome and the entire thing if handled well,could have made it a classic.
No.Milkha word ko silent kar ke bhaag!! :).And movie ending at Rome and the entire thing if handled well,could have made it a classic.
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