Saturday, September 24, 2011

Mausam movie review

Spoiler Alert: This post reveals the story line (?); but don't worry! The director has already done a terrific job spoiling the movie.

Pick up the horrible incidents that happened in the past 2-3 decades; and create characters that connect all these dots. That's what Mausam is all about. Operation blue star, ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits, terrorism in kashmir, Babri masjid, Twin towers, Godhra... You name it! Every notorious tragedy of the past, is a part of the movie. I liked the fact that the director wanted to show how humanity is buried in the name of differences; but when that is not focused on one incident and virtually everything is taken into the scope of a three hour movie, the result is an extremely long, boring movie; and that's exactly what Mausam is. (Aanaalum padam rommmba mosamnga! :D)

The best part of the movie is the heroine and right from scene 1, she faces trouble wherever she goes. Born in Kashmir, victimized by ethnic cleansing, losing her uncle in Mumbai blasts, missing her lover due to Kargil war, discriminated by the US government after the twin tower attack, escaping death in punjab riots... She is more or less the angel of death in the movie. If I were her, I would better stay home and let the world live in peace.

The other funny aspect was the chemistry between the hero and the heroine. Shahid is obviously shorter than Sonam and he looks like her little brother than anything else. And their ridiculously long love story spanning three decades of riots and violence is just intolerable. On top of this, the director apparently forgot that there is an editing department and there are so many scenes after which you scratch your head, thinking "Why have that scene now?". The climax scene was the best of the lot. Every time a bunch of goons (causing riots as usual) walk around or even remotely get mentioned in a statement, the heroine asks "Who are they?" and Shahid says "They are nameless shadows of death" and this statement is repeated like 3 or 4 times to stress the importance of it. Likewise, with his left arm paralyzed by a flight accident, the hero climbs through the arms of a giant wheel to rescue a child and this part alone takes about 15 mins of the movie. As usual, he rescues the child and his arm becomes functional again. Looks like the director forgot the fact that people have been watching so many movies in the past to automagically understand the result of such sequences.

In short, I wasted about 3 hrs of my time, watching a movie that had no traces of continuity or screenplay in it. Yawwwwn!

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