Hawaizaada

About flying and freedom (and, of course, love), the Bollywood movie "Hawaizaada," directed by Vibhu Virender Puri, spins legend into more legend. The year is 1895, and the setting is Bombay. The story concerns a quest by two Indians to build an airplane and to show the British rulers of India - "A monkey can't make a machine!" one says - what their subjects can do. Mr. Puri's film is so laden with symbols - Christian imagery is everywhere - and resonances (Hindu myths and scriptures) that it's sometimes hard to read. But an Indian nationalist message comes through clearly, and it's an inclusive one. When Shivy and his mentor, Subbaraya Shastry (Mithun Chakraborty), need money to continue their experiments in flying, which are based on Vedic numbers and principles, Shivy's old pals contribute money they'd been saving to go on hajj. Shivar Bapuji Talpade, who developed the first successful flying machine in 1895, 8 years before the wright brothers. Yes, its proved in national science congress that a device similar to modern planes successfully flew at the height of 1500 feet in the air and successfully landed.

If one has a serious claim to make in front of the entire world that it was an Indian scientist actually responsible for the first ever flight in the air with a plane (years before the Wright Brothers), then what path the director is expected to follow?

Obviously he has to make it as believable as possible with all logical reasoning, historical references, evident proofs and a powerful screenplay/execution that convinces the viewers to believe in every proceeding on the screen arousing a proud collective patriotic feeling in the end among his audiences.

But sadly that is not the vision followed in HAWAIZAADA directed by Vibhu Virender Puri (his debut in feature films), who amateurishly walks on an entirely unexpected, silly and illogical path to portray his important point and then completely falls flat unable to convince the viewers from any angle of his unfortunately. In other words, instead of presenting a logical take, Vibhu comes up with an entirely fantasy version of the claim, with a dream like execution having a clear, visible, heavy hangover Sanjay Leela Bhansali. And as I believe a Bhansali influence is surely capable of ruining more films than making them to be honest.

Commencing on a confusing note in its first scene itself, HAWAIZAADA keeps stressing more on colourful frames, heavy costumes, unrequired props, mindless romance and mediocre songs with a questionable comic touch that turns out to be weird throughout till the end. The script carelessly moves into various unclear directions, coming back to the main topic at intervals that eventually leads to a loss on interest and one starts questioning that what are they upto with such a messed up narration simply heading nowhere. The unnecessary stuffed melodrama, comedy and songs hardly give you anything to praise in its boringly long duration and that further forces you think that how could this even excite the makers reading it on the paper too.

Interestingly the biggest culprit of the screenplay/film remains its soulless romance and soundtrack that hampers its overall impact pretty badly and the film pathetically drags both in its first and second half featuring all unimpressive characters and their interactions. Its cinematographer, choreographer, editor and background score composer actually follow the vision of their director perfectly who probably wished to make a musical-fantasy-costume-drama instead of a realistic, believable historical film making a big claim in front of the entire world. The film's average soundtrack is hugely worked upon with innovative arrangements and variety but doesn't have that required melody to pull you in. For instance there is a traditional folk kind of song conceived with all western instruments and Ayushmann himself composes a Ghalib ghazal "Dil-e-Naadan"that has huge similarities with the one sung by Somesh Mathur in his album on Ghalib released many years back.

In the performance section, we have many honest efforts being made here assuming its probably a path breaking film about an astonishing fact never talked about before. Ayushmann Khurrana puts in the best with his utmost sincerity and so does Mithun Chakraborty as the main scientist, but they both get hugely betrayed by the poor writing and confused direction. Pallavi Sharda does nothing great to draw your attention and the same can be said about the rest of the cast too ranging from average to bad. Still among these uninspiring acts, a child artist Naman Jain does deliver an enjoyable natural performance in his few scenes.

Summing up, HAWAIZAADA remains a big opportunity wasted both in terms of cinema and as a document that could have been a solid support to the fact that an airplane was first invented in India before the Wright Brothers (and I was personally looking for the same in the film). It neither presents that amazing chapter of history with some logical justifications nor is able to convince the viewer through its messy execution wandering in various directions. In fact it seems that both the writers and their director were more interested in showing the romance, songs and drama instead of the invention being tried by the two men. As a result it comes out to be a childish fantasy take on the subject ruining a solid premise and after watching it I really doubt anyone would readily believe in the presented fact that it was an Indian scientist who did that significant invention first before the westerners.

In real terms, that is the damage this film has probably done to the debatable truth….unfortunately.

(NOTE : For record, the film is based on the life of scientist Shivkar Bapuji Talpade (of Maharashtra) who is credited for inventing the first air plane years before the Wright Brothers.)

The film is truly spectacular on the account of visuals. The production design is one of greatest in recent Hindi films. The sets, the artistic props, the designing is really commendable. With great production design, comes greatest in cinematography. Kudos to Savita Singh's cinematography brilliance that made this film looks totally a visual treat. Seriously, I have not seen such beautiful frames in recent times, without VFX. The basic concept was well thought too.

But, with all these superb things in hand, the film doesn't able to make to what it could be. The screenplay got messed up in the film's way to make it under historical event. Yeah, it could have been one of the greatest film in Hindi film industry. But, it all lacks at film's narrative part. The characters been so melodramatic about each situation makes a regular Hindi film, which it should not be.

The director looses his brilliant idea by indulging more of a melodramatic romantic recipe into it. The film paces up in between, dialogue teaches us good. But, when the flight tries to be up high, it gets lost in the romantic clouds. It sees a great potential journey suffering from jet-lag here.

It should be pure epic exploring the core idea more, yet it is somewhat inspirational.

The premise of Hawaizaada had potential to be a really interesting account of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade who is believed to have flown an airplane even before the Wright brothers. While the motives of debut-director Vibhu Puri are in place but not enough importance is given either to writing a good screenplay or to dwell upon actual facts and science. What we get is dozens of needless songs stuffed in with a poor romance story and juvenile attempts at humor. I don't know how a talented lad like Ayushmann Khurrana ended up in this travesty.

Ayushmann plays Shivkar Talpade who is not very good studies and hence has been failing in the same class for years now. He is very intelligent though when it comes to building things and practical knowledge. But before we can see him go on building an aircraft we have to sit through an atrocious hour of romance with his lady-love Sitara (Pallavi Sharda) and a couple of boring songs. Both of them belong to different classes which angers Shiv's father removing him from his house and Sitara also leaves him believing it is not suitable for them to marry. After all that clichéd melodrama finally Shiv meets an old science-enthusiast Shastri (Mithun Chakraborty) who is trying to build the first ever flying vehicle with help of verses from ancient Vedas. He sees the spark in Shiv when Shiv makes a model he Shastri built take-off with his knowledge. They both start working together and Shiv leans a lot about Vedas from Shastri. Then our hero's lady love is back in the story to stuff in more melodrama and songs. I really don't understand why Bollywood needs to have romance and dozens of songs in every film no matter of the subject or genre. The film runs for a dragging length of 2 and half hours and by the time we see Shiv fly away I was waiting badly for the credits to start rolling to put an end to the boredom.

The positives that here are the glamorous sets filled with glitter and colors. But they do seem a lot artsy to give the historic feel required. The British people shown are ridiculous and the independence propaganda is also thrown in making the screenplay way too out of place. Not much heed is given in the script to actual science behind the airplane models rather the characters speak one- dimensional dialogues consisting of nothing more than 'Your plane will fly, keep your hopes alive'. Ayushmann tries his best but poor dialogues overshadow his commitment. Mithun as the typical mentor adds nothing new and Pallavi's career flight is yet to take off with back-to-back disasters Besharam and this one. Only silver lining I could spot is the child actor Naman Jain portraying Shivkar's nephew. Lot of work was needed in the editing department, the script could have been stretched up to two hours maximum. Hawaizaada pursues for the flight for too long that making the actual flight tasteless. It has its heart at the right place but unfortunately that's the only thing going its way. Utterly disappointing.

RATING: [1/5]

Inspirational for Indians.. should be watched by young... made in a different style of fantasy and fiction.. but based on true story about the first person who made a flight machine and he happened to Indian.